\J 




CopyrightN^_ 



COPYRFGHT DEPOSflV 



^ THE 
REORGANIZATION OF OUR 
SCHOOLS 

SOME EDUCATIONAL POSTULATES 

AND 

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE 
ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS 



BY 



FREDERIC W; SANDERS, A. M. (Harvard), Ph. D. (Chicago) 

Sometime Member of the Territorial Board of Education of New Mexico, President of 
the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Principal of the Lincoln 
(Neb.) High School, Assistant Professor of Pedagogy in West Virginia University, 
Lecturer on Social Economics and Education for the University of Chicago, Honorary 
Fellow at Clark University, University Fellow in Sociology at Columbia University, 
etc. 



THE PALMER COMPANY 
BOSTON 






Copyright 1915 

BY 

The Palmer Company "^ 



Newcomb & Gauss, Printers, 
Salem, Mass. 



FEB II 1916 

©aA418784 t 



^0 

THE AUTHOR'S FELLOW WORKERS IN EDUCATION 
but especially to 

JOHN DEWEY 

a social philosopher 

with the scientist's determination to test his theories; in 

whose Chicago Elementary School the author first 

saw what interest could do for cultural 

development and practical efficiency. 

G. STANLEY HALL 
genetic psychologist 
whose great idea, richly stored mind, and fecund imagina- 
tion have made him the most inspiring and sug- 
gestive of teachers 
and 

JOHN H. FRANCIS 

practical idealist 

with the vision of the school as a microcosm in which the 

child shall find the man he should he, and with 

the determination to realize that vision 

^1)10 ^oot( 10 3Detiicateti 



PREFACE 

If the author has read aright the signs of the 
times, as they appear in educational conferences and 
in popular discussions, there is now a really urgent 
demand for practical and reasonably definite sug- 
gestions as to the reorganization of our schools. 
There is especial need for a definite plan that shall 
show how to retain that which is essential to the 
general education of every future man and woman, 
at the same time that a place is found for^ the vari- 
ous forms of special^ technical or other vocational 
training that may he necessary for the individual 
hoy or girl. 

A year spent in studying not merely the schools, 
but the economic, political and social conditions 
underlying and overlying the school system of Ger- 
many has convinced the author that Europe at its 
best has not found a solution for the most pressing of 
our educational problems. The first problem for 
our educators to solve is that suggested at the close 
of the preceding paragraph; a problem that is all 
the more serious because the ardent advocates of 
general culture, on the one hand, and of practical 
efficiency, on the other, alike refuse to face it, while 
the practical schoolmen of our own country, fol- 
lowing the lead of Europe, seem generally to think 
that they have disposed of the difficulty when they 



VI PREFACE 

can say that their schools are prepared to give either 
general culture or technical training, or, in some 
cases, will give a mixture of both in such proportions 
as the pupil or his parents may elect, — thus reliev- 
ing the educator of his special duty to society and to 
youth, by unloading his most weighty responsibility 
on to the shoulders of the ignorant boy or girl or of a 
parent that may be no less ignorant. 

Deeply impressed by this social problem of the 
educator, and hardly less so by the psychological 
problem of how to plan the worh of the school to 
meet and make the most of the several stages of the 
young being's physical and, mental development as he 
passes from early childhood to late adolescence, the 
author, on his return from Europe, sought to with- 
draw wholly from the field of ^ ^higher" and ^ ^normal" 
education, and to obtain a position in which he 
could work directly at the problems of elementary 
and secondary education. During four years as 
principal of the high school of I^ebraska's capital 
and educational center he was enabled to put to the 
test much of that which is suggested in the following 
pages for the "secondary transition" (or intermedi- 
ate) department and for the "adolescent" depart- 
ment (or high school proper). He has not yet been 
able to make the same rigorous test, under his own 
direction, of the whole of that which relates to the 
play school, primary transition department, and the 
elementary department (or "grammar school", as it 
is called in many of our cities), although much of 



\ 



PREFACE ^^^ 



this he has observed in successful operation in one 
school or another in America or Europe. A great 
part of what is here suggested has been presented to 
bodies of teachers and school administrators in dif- 
ferent parts of the United States, and practically all 
of it has been presented in the form of lectures to 
the summer school of the University of :N'ebraska 
and to the pedagogical department of Clark Univer- 
sity. The reception accorded it in the limited fields 
indicated and the comments of able, practical educa- 
tors has encouraged the writer to believe that the 
time is ripe for the publication of this essay in educa- 
tional organization. 

While the purpose of the author's work is prima- 
rily practical, yet he is unwilling to put it forth 
without a brief presentation of the educational phi- 
losophy underlying it, and he trusts that the eight 
postulates preceding the plan of organization will 
not be thought to detract from the practical nature 
of the work. While a few ultra-practical school- 
men might be better pleased if this introduction 
were omitted, the author is reasonably confident that 
the greater number of school administrators and 
teachers will feel that the preliminary theses add 
to the value of the work, and of course they will 
make it more available as a basis for reading-circle 
work and normal-school discussion. 

F. W. S. 

Los Angeles, California. 



SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS 

Postulates 

I. Purpose of education to enable members of society to 
attain highest possible development page 1 

Corollaries la page 1 

h page 1 

2 page 1 

Kemarks in elucidation of postulate page 2 

II. The human being a psycho-physical unit page 6 
Eemarks page 6 

III. Three stages of individual development and two 
transitional periods, of great significance for the organ- 
ization of education page 7 
Eemarks page 9 

IV. Correspondence betw^een development of race and of 
individual significant for education page 10 
Kemarks page 10 

V. Education should be influenced, but not dominated, 
by the inherent tendencies of developing youth, page 11 
Kemarks page 13 

VI. In education the policy of the open door should be 
maintained page 16 
Kemarks page 16 

VII. The best education is the most economical, page 17 
Remarks page 17 

VIII. Now is the time for practical reforms in the 
school page 18 
Kemarks page 18 

Practical Suggestions 

I. General Plan of Organizing Schools, with the psycho- 
physical development as the basis of classification, with 
constant opportunity for readjustment, with a mini- 
mum of work for the less gifted, with much individual 
work within the classes, and with the possibility for 
outside work in cultivation of a special interest through- 
out the school course page 19 



X SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS 

§1. In general page 19 

§3. Economy of this Plan Compared with the Plan 
Usually Followed page 22 

§3. Enfranchisement and Stimulation of the Elemen- 
tary School Teacher, not bound to an iron schedule 
for an arbitrary period, with uniform results for all 
pupils, but entrusted with the guidance of the devel- 
opment of a group of children throughout a natural 
period of their psycho-physical development, page 25 

§4. Benefits to Different Classes of Pupils page 30 

§5. No Exceptional Demands upon Teacher, expert 
supervision being assumed page 37 

§6. Plan to be considered with reference to the con- 
tent of the curriculum, etc., of the several depart- 
ments of the school page 43 

IT. Scope of the Several Departments of the School 

§1. The Play School page 43 

§2. The Primary Transition Department page 52 

§3. The Elementary Department 

A. General view page 53 

B. Curriculum 

1. Reckoning and Mathematics page 54 

2. Language page 56 

3. Economic and cultural development of man- 
kind, or History page 58 

4. Geography (connecting 3 and 5) page 59 

5. Nature Study, or Elementary Science, page 60 

6. (a) Art and (&) Manual Training page 60 

7. Physical Culture page 61 

C. Usual Daily Program: Discussion page 61 
Table page 68 

§4. Secondary Transition Department 

A. General View page 69 

B. Curriculum 

1. Required Courses 

a. Science page 75 

h. History (and Government) page 81 



SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS XI 

c. Literature and Esthetics page 84 

d. Physical Culture page 90 

e. Art page 90 

2. Elective Courses (either practical or cultural) 

page 91 

3. Optional Course page 91 
C. Daily Program page 91 

§5. Secondary Department, or Adolescent Depart- 
ment 

A. General View page 93 

B. First Year's Work 

1. English page 94 

2. History page 94 

3. Laboratory Course in Science page 95 

4 and 5. Physical Culture and Art page 96 

6. Elective Work (vocational or cultural) page 96 

page 96 

C. After the First Year page 99 

III. Adaptation of Plan to Several Classes of Young Peo- 
ple 

§1. Girls page 104 

§2. The Normal Child 

In the Play School page 107 

In the Primary Transition Department page 107 

In the Elementary Department page 110 

In the Secondary Transition Department page 110 

In the Adolescent Department page 110 

§3. The Child of Slow Development page 113 

§4. The Precocious Child page 115 

§5. The Young Person Who Enters School Very Late 

page 116 
§6. The Industrial Worker and the Evening School 

page 119 



The Reorganization of Our Schools 

POSTULATES 

I. The purpose of education is to assist the indi- 
vidual to make the most of himself, and thus do 
most for others; to enable him to grow into the 
largest life possible for one having so rich an en- 
dowment as that with which he is provided at 
birth. 

Corollaries of this truth are: 

la. The child himself must be studied in order 
that education may fit his needs and adapt it- 
self to his several stages of development, 
b. Since, at any given stage of its development, 
the being that is, is the outcome of the develop- 
ment of an earlier stage of life, and as long as 
its development is incomplete its present condi- 
tion must be considered with reference to the 
later stages through which it is to pass, it fol- 
lows that, to interpret aright the life of the in- 
dividual child of today, we must study his past 
and that of the ancestral forms of life out of 
which his has developed, and we must consider 
also all that is known of the later stages of de- 
velopment of similar beings. 
2. Information, carefully prepared, must be 
given to the child, in addition to whatever else 



2 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

may be done for him in the effort to provide 
him with a suitable environment for such a de- 
velopment of all the nascent powers of mind 
and body as will most enlarge his life. Because 
as far as possible every individual of each suc- 
ceeding generation should be given the vantage 
ground afforded by a general knowledge of what 
has so far been achieved by any of the human 
race, a very important part of the business of the 
educator is to summarize what men have so far 
learned in art and science and philosophy, and 
to impart a hnowledge of the principal results 
of these achievements of mankind to the indi- 
viduals of the rising generation, even though it 
may be impossible to explain to the greater 
number of the latter how these facts and truths 
were first brought to light. 
Remarks in elucidation of the postulate : — To 
speak somewhat more in detail, although it may be 
difficult to make the necessary distinctions as clearly 
as they ought to be made, we should, I think, recog- 
nize that the purpose of education is neither, on the 
one hand, to make the individual life an ideal one, 
in the sense of bringing it into conformity with an 
a priori ideal having a definite content, nor, on the 
other hand, to fit the individual to play a prescribed 
part in that particular organization of society into 
which he happens to be born. Such educational 
ideals are too static. The one assumes that we al- 
ready know the content of perfection of life; the 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 6 

other, that the present organization of society is a 
final form to which not alone the present life of the 
individual, but that of all future individuals, must 
be conformed. 

It does not seem to me safe to assume that fitness 
for one's immediately present environment is the 
norm by which to judge of human progress or of 
height and completeness of development in general. 
The degenerate, sightless and limbless parasite prob- 
ably has such fitness in the highest degree ; but with 
this perfect adaptation to its narrow special environ- 
ment the power of adaptation to a larger and more 
varied environment is gone. The educator's work 
should no more be determined by a narrow interpre- 
tation of the theory of evolution by natural selection 
than it should be prescribed by a traditional or a 
purely metaphysical ideal of a perfect life. What 
seems to be desirable is what might be called a 
rational opportunism, the application of enlightened 
common sense to the preservation of a sort of mov- 
ing equilibrium. I^ot less truly a part of man's 
nature than his inherited instincts is the highly de- 
veloped reason by which he is enabled not alone to 
adapt his conduct to quite new experiences, but also 
to learn things not immediately necessary for his 
next step in life ; and, as a result of this, to modify 
his immediate environment or to pass from it into 
one that his cultivated insight leads him to believe 
will make possible for him a larger life, i. e., one 
that may be less in harmony with that immediate 



4 THE REOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

environineiit in which lie was "born, but that will be 
in more perfect harmony with the universal and ap- 
parently unalterable habits of the Universe at large, 
SO far as he has learned them, and that will thus, by 
reason of a more perfect unity between his individual 
life and the universal existence, give him the largest, 
the most divine life possible for man. 

Studying the phenomena of life in the full light of 
instinctive and rational experience, we cannot but 
learn much as to the conditions of a satisfactory 
life ; and each one of us, whether as private individ- 
ual or as teacher, is answerable to society as well as 
to his owQ conscience for the application of what he 
thus learns. To me personally, it seems that such a 
studv of life, of nature, human and non-human, 
makes it evident that human happiness is the ideal 
for human effort, and that the greatest happiness, 
quantitatively considered (if that conception be legit- 
imate), not alone for the race at large, but also for 
the individual, is also the highest happiness, ethical- 
ly considered ; that, in other words, our happiness is 
measured by the largeness of our love, and this means 
the breadth of our sympathies, which in turn is de- 
pendent upon the widest possible extent of knowl- 
edge, requiring the fullest possible symmetrical 
development of the potentialities of our nature, 
psychical and physical. The largest possible devel- 
opment of our nature does not mean the fullest pos- 
sible development of each individual tendency that 
exists in a human being, each trait being considered 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 5 

by itself; for the greatest possible development of 
any one trait, either physical or niental, would 
doubtless mean a corresponding suppression of many 
others: but the largest possible development of the 
whole nature requires the maintenance of a certain 
symmetry and proportion in the cultivation of our 
special instincts and abilities. Only so great a de- 
velopment of each of these is normally desirable, as 
is consistent with the largest possible development of 
the whole nature. It seems to me that this principle, 
administered in the light of experience and reason, 
is quite satisfactory. It is true that the recognition 
of this principle makes restraint as well as encour- 
agement a part of the work of education, and leaves 
it to the educator's discretion, in the light of his 
whole experience, emotional, instinctive and rational, 
to determine w^hen and where to apply the brake 
and when and where to encourage the child's im- 
pulses. But, that science or philosophy should be 
expected to give us an unerring rule providing 
specifically for every detail, and informing us in 
advance just exactly to what extent we should en- 
courage and to what extent restrain the several nat- 
ural tendencies of each individual, seems to me as 
childish as to demand the moon for a plaything. He 
who expects from the study of nature, of evolution, 
of the spontaneous activity of the universe, to derive 
such a formula, has profited very little from the hard 
won knowledge man has so far gained of the consti- 
tution of the universe: for that knowledge points to 



6 THE KEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

the truth that ^'eternal vigilance is the price of lib- 
erty/' or, in other words, that in the evolution of 
humanity man's reason as well as his instincts have 
been developed, and that he must use the former 
continually, as well as the latter, to adjust his own 
adult life and the life of his offspring to, and to keep 
them in adjustment with, the environment formed 
by the complex universal existence of which these 
individual human lives are a part. 

II. The human being is a psycho-physical unit in 
which the association of mind with body is so 
intimate, the connection so close, that neither can 
be acted upon independently of the other : physical 
changes involve mental changes ; physical culture 
involves the cultivation of certain mental states ; 
and mental, moral and spiritual development are 
possible only through the exercise of physical 
powers. 

Remarhs: — While it is true that one may culti- 
vate certain physical powers to an extent prejudicial 
to certain of the higher psychical powers, or' certain 
psychical powers in such a way as to neglect and in- 
jure many physical powers, — just as one may culti- 
vate one physical power to the prejudice of another 
physical power, or one kind of psychical activity 
to the prejudices of other kinds of psychical activity, 
— yet in general the highest human development is 
dependent upon the symmetrical development of 
mind and body, a high degree of perfection in the 
former being dependent upon the most perfect and 



THE EEORaANIZATIOi!^' OF OUK SCHOOLS 7 

symmetrical development of the latter; so that even 
if the development of our bodily powers, if physical 
culture were not in and for itself a highly desirable 
end of education (which, however, it is), it would 
still be the necessary concern of the educator as a 
sine qua non for the best mental development. 

In this connection it is pertinent to quote two 
statements that have been forcefully put by Mr. 
Cephas Guillet in his article on ^'Kecapitulation and 
Education" in volume VII of the Pedagogical Sem- 
inary. The first is certainly suggestive even if its 
truth has not yet been perfectly established ; and the 
second seems to me, at least, to be as certain as any 
truth can be that is neither given us by intuition (as 
is the fact of self -existence) nor capable of a mathe- 
matical demonstration. On page 429 Mr. Guillet 
says that ^'Biology teaches us that it is the over- 
specialized species that have always succumbed in the 
struggle. Man owes his preeminence to the fact that 
he is born an immature and generalized form and 
long retains this condition of plasticity.'^ The other 
statement (on page 433) is that "Every part of the 
living body is also in effect part of the soul, and the 
atrophy of any part of the body involves the partial 
paralysis of the soul." 

III. It is of great significance in education that the 
study of human beings at different stages of de- 
velopment has made evident not only that (a) 
individuals differ greatly in various psychic 
and physical particulars and capacities, but that 



8 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

(h) the same individual differs greatly at dif- 
ferent stages of natural development, and that 
(c) notwithstanding the individual peculiarities 
there is a general likeness in the mental and 
bodily powers of all normal members of the 
same race at corresponding stages of develop- 
ment, and that, finally, there are at least 
three fairly well marked stages of psycho- 
physical development falling within the com- 
monly recognized periods of systematic school 
education, separated hy two transition periods, 
which stages of development are so distinct as 
to suggest that they should he made the bases 
of the organization and grading of our school 
system. 

These stages of psycho-physical development are: — 

A. The period of quite rapid growth prior to the 
"second dentition" and the approximate com- 
pletion of the growth of the brain in bulk — 
which might be designated as the period of 
childhood proper. 

a. The transition period of retarded growth and 
comparative delicacy, at the time of the 
"second dentition", most marked generally 
in American children about the eighth year. 

B. The period of slow but steady growth, follow- 
ing the establishment of a new equilibrium 
after the completion of the transition period 
just mentioned, and lasting until puberty. 
Thi^ appears to be a period especially favor- 



THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 9 

able to the establishment of useful automa- 
tisms, and might be designated as the period 
of boyhood and girlhood proper. 
h. The critical transition period of pubescence, 
said to come generally in the United States 
in the case of girls about the fourteenth year, 
and in the case of boys about a year later. 
C. The period of adolescence proper. 
Remarks: It would perhaps be well for the edu- 
cator to regard the year in which puberty is actually 
attained and the year or two immediately following 
as constituting a special stage of development, differ- 
ing considerably from that of later adolescence, as 
well as differing radically from that of boyhood or 
girlhood preceding it. This stage is unquestionably 
the most critical stage of human development with 
which the teacher has to deal. 

It seems hardly necessary to add that no one 
maintains that these periods are marked off by per- 
fectly sharp lines ; it is not maintained, for example, 
that the general state of mind and body of a girl 
during the few months immediately preceding her 
first menstrual discharge is less like the mental and 
physical state of the same girl three months after the 
first catamenia than it is like her psycho-physical 
condition on her tenth birthday. E'evertheless, al- 
though the boundaries are not sharp, the stages are 
fairly distinct and of great significance; and it is 
well to notice that under our present system of pub- 
lic school organization in the United States the three 



10 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

stages of development above referred to as (1) 
childhood proper, (2) boyhood and girlhood proper, 
and (3) adolescence, correspond roughly to the pri- 
mary school, the "grammar", or intermediate school, 
and the high school. But unfortunately the corre- 
spondence is only roughly approximated, and to say 
nothing of the lack of any clear line of distinction in 
method between the instruction in the kindergarten 
and primary school, on the one hand, and that in the 
upper, or "grammar school" grades, on the other (the 
division in fact coming rather between the kinder- 
garten, where there is one, on the one hand, and the 
primary and grammar grades together, on the other), 
it is a patent (and I think a very unfortunate) fact 
that the higher grammar-school grades deal chiefly 
with adolescents. 

IV. The comparative study of the mental and phys- 
ical development of men and of sub-human 
animals, of races and of individuals, in the 
light of the doctrine of evolution, has sug- 
gested certain interesting truths as to the 
meanings of mental and physical phenomena, 
which it is foolish to ignore, even though it be 
granted that these suggested probabilities have 
not yet been demonstrated to be true. 
Remarks: It is not only unwise to ignore the 
possibility that there may be great significance in 
some of the correspondences between the develop- 
7nent of the race and that of the individual, but it is 
silly to assume (as has been assumed by one or more 



THE KEORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 11 

writers) that if these correspondences be significant 
it is incumbent upon us to read them in only one 
way, and to interpret the development of the race 
in the light of that of the individual, but not the de- 
velopment of the individual in the light of that of 
the race. If the correspondences are significant, we 
can not only learn something as to the development 
of the race from that of the individual, but also 
something as to the development of the individual 
from our (admittedly imperfect) knowledge of the 
development of the race. Even though an enthusias- 
tic student of genetic psychology may sometimes ask 
us to go with him a little too fast and too far, ive 
must, nevertheless, if we are open-minded seekers 
for light, reckon witli genetic psychology in looking 
for solutions of educational problems. Although the 
^^recapitulation" theory^ may be unproven and the 
' 'culture epoch" theory f may have been assumed 
w^ith too much definiteness by some enthusiasts, and 
although the existence of "nascent stages":}: may be 
less satisfactorily established than the law of gravity, 
yet the educator that ignores these theories is turn- 
ing his back upon a possible (to speak very conserv- 
atively) source of light, and in doing so is unfaith- 
ful to the duty his vocation lays upon him. 
V. The acceptance of postulates III and IV does 
not at all require the educator to follow slavishly 

* See Cephas Guillet on "Recapitulation and Education" in 
the Pedagogical Seminary, vol. VII. 

fSee the writings of the American Herbartians generally, such 
as De Garmo's "Herbart and the Herbartians" (Scribners). 

t See the writings of Dr. G. Stanley Hall. 



12 THE KEORGANIZATIOIS' OF OUR SCHOOLS 

the tastes, inclinations and impulses showing 
themselves in the child at a given stage of de- 
velopment, but it does require that the educa- 
tor should carefully study these tendencies, in 
order to avail himself of the light thus gained 
to take the line of least resistence in assisting 
the child to such a development of the potential- 
ities of his nature as shall make possible for him 
a large, rich, beautiful, serviceable and happy 
life; that is to say, in order to give the child 
such an education as shall enable him to so 
far harmonize his life with things a& they are, 
physical and social, as to be capable of advan- 
cing freely, along the line of development sug- 
gested by his individual genius, into the largest 
life possible for a being having the endowments 
of humanity. 
Remarks: This means that the possibly cruel and 
savage impulses of a child at a given stage of devel- 
opment, while they should not be encouraged,* are 
yet to be considered by those whose duty it is to 
guide the child's development; these and all other 
instincts and natural inclinations of the child being 
used in his education, sometimes as suggesting 
methods of approach to valuable knowledge and 

* Calling to mind President G. Stanley Hall's well known tad- 
pole illustration, it may be sug-gested that biology has taught 
us in the case of certain batrachians that where the condi- 
tions are too favorable to the exercise of the organs adapted 
to the creature's early, water-inhabiting stage of development, 
it may never fully mature into the land-living stage of develop- 
ment characteristic of the genus to which it belongs, but may 
carry gills to the day of its death. 



THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 13 

achievement, at other times as affording points of 
departure for training in self-control, balance and 

poise of life. 

The work of the teacher is perhaps best indicated 
by the term guidance. While the teacher's function, 
most assuredly, is not to drive the pupils along a 
beaten educational highway, and probably it would 
be a mistake to conceive of the function of the teach- 
er even as that of one who should lead the young to 
follow in his own footsteps, yet the teacher's business 
is to GUIDE, to accompany the young in their voyages 
of discovery into the by them as yet unexplored uni- 
verse which lies all about them, to give them the 
benefit of his previous partial exploration of that 
which is to them wholly terra incognita, and to point^ 
out to them the shortest path to those points of van- 
tage giving broad vistas from which the young ex- 
plorer can most intelligently plan his own future 
excursions. 

It might naturally be supposed that the scion of 
the most highly evolved genus of living beings of 
which we have any knowledge, the marvelous com- 
plexity of whose organism surpasses the most won- 
derful miracle of which the poetic imagination of 
man has ever conceived, would be provided at birth 
with a nervous system so moulded by the experiences 
of the stock from which his life buds forth, that the 
successive instincts that find expression as his life 
develops to maturity would of themselves go far to 
make his life a satisfactory one, even in the absence 



14 THE KEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 

of any consciously directed education on tlie part of 
his elders. But we should remember that in the 
economy of nature it is quite possible that the paren- 
tal instincts of the adult may be substituted for in- 
stincts of self -direction in a being whose infancy is 
to be long continued; so that, freed from the care 
and strain of self-preservation and self-protection, 
the immature being may long retain that high de- 
gree of plasticity and educability through which 
alone it can gain the benefit of the many and impor- 
tant new experiences of diiferent individual mem- 
bers of the highly evolved and very delicately and 
complexly organized race to which it belongs — ex- 
periences that may have been too recently gained 
and too rapidly accumulated to have made a defi- 
nitely heritable impress upon the nervous system. 
In the light of. this reflection it would seem that to 
leave the child to be wholly guided by his own indi- 
vidual instincts would be to force what from the stand- 
point of civilization must be regarded as a precocious 
maturity upon him, and thus to deprive him of the 
present enjoyment and future benefit of the pro- 
longed youth for which nature has made such ample 
provision, the result of which deprivation must be a 
stunted human product, whose psychic growth 
would be greatly diminished, if not wholly arrested 
on a low plane of development. In such a mistaken 
application of the idea of loyalty to nature, in thus 
trusting the child's development wholly to his own 
instincts at every stage of development, we should 



THE REOllGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 15 

really be acting in disregard of and in opposition to 
the method of nature, which has made large pro- 
vision for the development of humanity through the 
parental instinct of guidance and by means of the 
power of mental abstraction that mankind has ac- 
quired, which makes it possible to communicate a 
great part of the results of recent individual human 
experiences to those who have not themselves had 
these particular experiences, who may never have 
them, but who may nevertheless be benefitted by the 
knowledge that has been gained through them. We 
too often forget that civilization is itself a natural 
product of human development, although one com- 
municable rather by tradition, by education, than by 
inheritance. 

An admirable illustration of the pedagogical value 
of the instincts and inclinations in the child that 
appear to repeat those of an earlier stage of adult 
human development, is offered by the use that may 
be made of this similarity between the development 
of the race and of the individual, to teach the child, 
(almost unconsciously to himself, but in the most 
real and vital and convincing manner) the history 
of the development of the human race to its present 
stage of culture, by presenting to the child, by de- 
scription and illustration, the successive stages of 
the development of the human race towards its pres- 
ent grade of civilization, at those stages of his own 
individual development from infancy to maturity, 
at which he is best fitted to sympathize with, imitate, 



16 THE BEORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

and enter into tlie spirit of the several grades of 
social development portrayed. Much can be done 
in this way; and the youth who has thus learned 
history, who has thus learned step by step, at the 
right time, in such a way as to feel the naturalness 
of it, the genesis of our present culture — of our in- 
stitutions and ideas, our material and mental devel- 
opment — ^has a vital knowledge of history which many 
a professor might envy, a knowledge that has the 
great practical value of protecting him from the 
extravagance and inconsiderate impatience of the 
Utopian idealist and the revolutionary reformer, and 
of leading him to be at the same time and in the 
best sense conservative and progressive, saving him 
at once from the despair and cynicism of the pessi- 
mist, and from the blind fatuity of the optimist, 
and giving him instead the poise and sanity of the 
hopeful, thoughtful and energetic meliorist. 
VI. In education the policy of the open door should 
be maintained as far as possible. 
Remarks: This requires not alone that we should 
do all that we can to have the young person's life 
rich and beautiful at any given stage of develop- 
ment, but that we should so do this as to keep the 
possibility open for him to proceed to the highest 
round of the educational ladder with the least loss 
of time and effort, in case he should later be able to 
carry his systematic education farther than may at 
an early stage seem probable; that his education 
shall be so carefully and broadly planned that what 



THE KEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 17 

he learns at any early stage of his development, 
whether in adolescence, boyhood, or childhood, shall 
not shut him up to just one line of development in 
the future. 

VII. The hest education that can possibly be af- 
forded, is the most economical, both for the 
community at large that provides it for its 
rising generation and for the individual 
families that offer it to their children. 
BemjdrJcs: All the investigations of economists, 
publicists and statesmen point to the fact that the 
richest and most productive communities are those 
in which the people, the workers, are most intelli- 
gent and efficient, — that is, best educated (although 
not necessarily most schooled, or book learned). So 
that, even from the standpoint of the community or 
of the family that desires nothing higher than thai 
its members shall he most largely possessed of the 
material goods of life, the development and improve- 
ment of education shoidd he the chief interest. 

This would be true even if the life were not more 
than meat, and the body than raiment, even if the 
best education (in the true sense) were not of su- 
preme value from the standpoint of ability to live 
a large, rich, beautiful human life, — to enable our 
young people to enter into their inheritance as the 
heirs of the ages and to enjoy the richness and 
beauty of this wonderful universe that is so largely 
a closed book to the narrow minds and undeveloped 
physical natures of the uneducated. 



18 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

VIII. Now is (always) the time for practical re- 
form in the school (as everywhere else). 
Renmrhs: There is no more insidious fallacy — 
nothing so perfectly calculated to paralyze practical 
work for the amelioration of human institutions — 
than the notion that our present business is simply 
to gather facts and submit hypotheses to laboratory 
tests, until we shall have a fairly complete body of 
scientifically established knowledge upon which to 
base practical action. Our knowledge will never be 
complete — at least until the need for the amelio- 
ration of human conditions shall have passed away! 
— and it is always our duty to apply with the one 
hand the little insight that we have already gained, 
while with the other hand we are reaching out 
toward larger knowledge. Experience would seem 
to suggest that the greater our achievements in sci- 
ence, the more we shall be impressed by our igno- 
rance, the vaster our conception of the unknown ly- 
ing before us, and hence the less ready we shall be to 
regard our knowledge as fairly complete. If we 
were to wait for that consummation, we should never 
take the first step toward improving the practical 
conditions of life. 



PRACTICAL SUGGESTION'S. 
I. 

As to the General Plan of Organizing the Schools. 

Section 1. The practical recognition of the pos- 
tulates hereinbefore set forth and the realization of 
the truth contained in them may best be attained, I 
believe, by such a flexible organization of the school 
system as is indicated below, in which the psycho- 
physical stages of development above referred to 
shall be taken as the bases of classification and grad- 
ing, in which there shall be ample opportunity for 
readjustment, and in which there shall be much in- 
dividual instruction without foregoing the benefits 
of class work. 

Each school period corresponding to the stages of 
psycho-physical development mentioned above should 
be treated as one continuous class (whether lasting 
one year or four), in which class the core of the 
work should consist of a minimum curriculum for 
all, such as can be followed by the slowest and dull- 
est pupil that is not so far below the normal plane 
as to require education in a special school for de- 
fectives. Furthermore, in planning the school work, 
provision should be made for the pursuit by every 
child of some special, individual interest not em- 
braced in the prescribed curriculum — such as learn- 
ing to play upon a musical instrument, cultivating a 
special talent for drawing or painting, learning a 
foreign language not provided for in the curricu- 



20 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

lum, etc."^ In addition to this the plan of daily 
work must be so flexible that the children having 
special aptitudes in any one, in several, or in all 
directions can be given extra work therein. More 
difficult problems or a greater number of problems 
illustrating the principles of which the whole class 
is endeavoring to gain a working knowledge, may 
be given to those showing mathematical talent ; more 
elaborate or a 2:reater number of observations and 
reports in nature study may be called for from those 
whose ability lies in this direction ; while in the case 
of others the surplus ability and energy may find 
its natural outlet in more reading along certain lines, 
in more elegant or in a greater number of manual 
achievements, etc. Further than this, the ability 
and energy of the more fortunately endowed chil- 
dren, wherever practicable (and that it is generally 
practicable many teachers have testified), should be 
employed to some extent in helping their less ad- 
vanced classmates. This is desirable not alone for 
the moral culture incidental to this kind of co-opera- 
tion, nor merely because a child can sometimes learn 
better from his felloAvs a little in advance of him 
than from adults, but also because we learn so much 
by teaching, that, aside from the moral benefit com- 
ing to the child teacher from this cultivation of the 
spirit of helpfulness, his measure of mastery of the 

* One of the most serious defects in the present organization 
of education is that it condemns the especially talented either 
to forego the proper early cultivation of their talent or else to 
give up such a general education as all men and v^^omen need 
in order to enable them to live large, useful, happy, human lives. 



THE KEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 21 

special kind of work in which lie excels his fellows 
will usually be much increased by this kind of exer- 
cise of his powers. But however else provision 
should be made for meeting the needs of the brighter 
members of the class, a part of their surplus energy 
and quickness to learn should be taken advantage of 
to give them more leisure for healthful, out-of-door 
exercise and recreation, lest they suffer from some 
of the forms of ill health, especially nervous dis- 
orders, to which the child of precocious mental de- 
velopment so often falls victim. 

It is evident that the kind of procedure here pro- 
posed, in the conduct of the school, involves a large 
amount of individual work, but the mistake must 
not be made of supposing that it would favor the 
abolition of class work. Far from it. A large part 
of the work of the school would be class work; not 
only would much of the original exposition and later 
explanation by the teacher be given to the class as a 
whole, but much of the "recitation", or response of 
the pupils, would be given to the class as a whole or 
to a large group thereof. Indeed, the experience of 
those who have worked along the lines indicated 
seems to conj&rm what might naturally be expected — 
that the attention of the other members of the class, 
and the liveliness and excellence of the contribution 
of the individual pupil will be all the greater if, for 
example, the latter has been observing or doing some- 
thing in nature study with which his classmates are 
not equally familiar, or if he is reading something 



22 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

which the whole class has not heen engaged in read- 
ing for a length of time determined by the size of the 
class and the slowness of the poorest reader it may 
contain ! 

Section 2. As large classes could be successfully 
conducted by a single teacher under the plan pro- 
posed as could be successfully conducted by a single 
teacher under any existing system. Under this sys- 
tem there would naturally be considerable group 
work within the class; but these groups would be 
flexible and constantly changing, and the child would 
not be working with group A in reading, although 
unskillful in that kind of activity, just because he 
might happen to be quick at figures and expert in 
manual work; the group would not be fixed for the 
term or for just so many weeks upon the btisis of the 
child's apparent brightness or backwardness in gen- 
eral, but groups would form themselves, as it were, 
in every hind of school occupation, in accordance 
with what the different children might be doing in 
the several lines of school activity. One of the great- 
est benefits of this would be that the children would 
not be prejudiced, and their self-confidence unduly 
discouraged or encouraged, as the case might be, by 
an artificial estimate of their rank among their fel- 
lows ; but greater mutual respect, a healthier self- 
confidence, and therefore more pleasure in life and 
greater zest and success for every individual, would 
arise out of the recognition of the fact that in school 
children do not necessarily belong in one of the two 



THE EEOEGANIZATIOJS^ OF OUR SCHOOLS 23 

opposite classes, the '^bright" and the "dull", but that 
child A may be able to do this thing better than C 
and D, while D may be able to do the next thing 
better than A and not so well as B, and so on.* 

Although it would doubtless be well, under any 
system, to have small classes, containing not more 
than two dozen children, I would emphasize the fact 
that this system would lend itself quite as well as 
any other to economy in the number of teachers, for 
with the help of one or more assistant teachers or 
normal training school cadets in each school, who 
might divide their time between several different 
classes, — one of them assisting teacher A in one 
room the first part of the forenoon, and working in 
teacher B's class in another room later in the day, — • 
class teachers could work successfully with large 
classes, and thus the expense for teachers' salaries 
need not be great. The especial function of the 
cadets or assistant teachers should generally be to 
help the children individually or in small groups; 
and the class teacher might well assign the conduct 
of the extra work of the brighter or more advanced 
pupils to the assistant, giving her own especial atten- 
tion more largely to the less able children, because 

* For an especially interesting account of successful indi- 
vidual work in classes of average size, see Mrs. Adelia R. 
Hornbrook's "Laboratory Method of Teaching Mathematics in 
Secondary Schools", American Educational Bulletin No. VI, 
American Book Co., 1895. See also the lecture and bibliography 
on "Individual Instruction" in the valua.ble syllabus of Cornell 
University Course of Friday Lectures on High School Work and 
Administration, and the elaborate presentation of the results 
of this method in the case of a foreign language class given 
in Preston W. Search's "Ideal Schoor' (Appleton, New York). 



24 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

to help bright children skill in teaching is relatively 
less important than knowledge of the subject (in 
which the cadet^, fresh from her studies, is generally 
not much, if at all, inferior to the experienced teach- 
er), whereas the duller children need all the peda- 
gogical skill that the experienced teacher can bring 
to their assistance.* 

It should be borne in mind that under the system 
herein proposed, in which the same class-teacher 
would have charge of a class throughout the whole 
of a given school period corresponding to one of the 
stages of psycho-physical development referred to in 
Postulate III, the number of classes in a given 
school could most readily, and in a manner so flex- 
ible as to be almost automatic, be adapted to the size 
and wealth of the community. While a comparative- 
ly small community might not have more than three 
or four classes in its elementary department (or 
school of boyhood and girlhood proper), starting one 
each year, a larger community with its correspond- 
ingly larger school fund, might start classes not only 
semi-annually but quarterly, bi-monthly, or even of- 
tener, so that any child in this stage of psycho- 
physical development could, at any time throughout 
the school year, find some class that would he almost 

* For a discussion of the economy of making- use of assistant 
teacliers to worlc in the same room with the teachers of large 
classes, see especially the syllabus (with bibliogrraphy) of a lec- 
ture by Superintendent Kennedy of Batavia, N. Y., given on 
page 53 of the Cornell University Course of Friday Lectures on 
High School Work and Administration; and see also Mr. 
Kennedy's presentation of the subject on page 295 of the 
National Educational Association's Preceedings for 1901. 



THE EEOEGANIZATIOX OF OUR SCHOOLS 25 

perfectly adapted to his exact stage of advancement ; 
and in sncli large schools, while it wonld donbtless 
generally be advisable for a child to continue in the 
same class, under the same teacher, throughout the 
whole school period in question (a period roughly 
estimated at from three to four years in length in 
the case of the elementary department), it would be 
possible at any time to transfer from one class to an- 
other a child whose mental and physical growth was 
especially rapid or especially slow, or who by reason 
of the peculiarity of his own or his teacher's dispo- 
sition, should not be getting on well in the class in 
which he happened at the time to be. In such a large 
school, having a number of classes started at nearly 
the same time some of the classes might be proceed- 
ing quite rapidly while others were progressing very 
slowly, the teacher of class A might be able to get 
most of her class very rapidly over the ground in its 
study of elementary mathematics but might have to 
go very slow with them in English, while class B 
might be making especially rapid progress in Eng- 
lish but be slower than other classes in mathematics 
or in the acquisition of manual dexterity. It would 
be easy under such conditions to transfer pupils 
from one class to another so as to group the children 
in such a manner that they could work together most 
successfully and harmoniously. 

Section 3. While the matters already referred to 
are important, the greatest benefit, perhaps, that 
would come from the adoption of the proposed sys- 



26 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

tern of reorganizing our schools, is to be found in the 
change it would make in the relation of the teacher 
to her work, — the inspiring freedom it would give 
her when she should be released from the treadmill 
grind of a machine operative engaged upon a part of 
a part of something with the ultimate form of which 
she has nothing to do, and thus deprived of the stim- 
ulus and reward of the artist-worker, who has, and 
must have if he or she is to continue to be an artist, 
the satisfaction of carrying a piece of work to its nat- 
ural completion. 'No longer tryannized over by the ne- 
cessity of bringing every class and the whole class — 
the bright and the dull, the sanguine and the phleg- 
matic, those favored by a cultured and prosperous 
home and those handicapped by a home environment 
of poverty, ignorance and indifference, those well 
and those ill prepared — no longer kept in a constant 
state of nervous strain by the necessity of bringing 
each rapidly succeeding class, as a whole, to a pre- 
ordained point in the curriculum within a certain 
number of weeks so as to make connection with an- 
other equally short-lived class at a fixed date twelve, 
six or three months from the time she first looks her 
little company of individuals in the face, the teacher, 
transformed from a factory-hand into one whose 
work is dignified and rendered interesting by the 
fact that it covers the whole of a natural period of 
child life, instead of an arbitrary section of such a 
unit, may well feel the inspiration of the artist, find- 
ing continual delight in a noble work freely pursued. 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 2i 

She could then proceed serenely without undue haste, 
to do her best to help the children in her charge to 
the most perfect development individually possible 
for each one of them within the psycho-physical 
period of development constituting her field of work. 
Her duty would no longer be to impart to all of 
her pupils, regardless of their various idiosyncrasies, 
exactly the same amount of information in just so 
many subjects, and to train them all to exactly the 
same degree of proficiency in certain prescribed ac- 
tivities. But whenever any individual of her class 
should appear to have completed the period of psycho- 
physical development to which her department of the 
school was designed to minister, it would be her 
duty (after consultation with her principal and with 
the parents of the young person) to transfer the lat- 
ter to the next department of the school, even though 
the estimated time for the completion of the stage of 
development represented by her own department had 
not elapsed and she should not be ready to pass her 
class as a whole over to the teacher in charge of the 
next higher department, and even though the young 
person in question, although more mature, should 
not be more, but should even be less proficient in the 
work of this department of the school than most of 
the classmates he would leave behind him. If, on 
the other hand, it should happen that the develop- 
ment of one or more of the children under the care 
of an elementary department teacher, for instance, 
should be so much more backward than that of the 



28 THE REOKGAW^IZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 

average, that sucli child or children should not be 
mature enough to go on with the rest of the class, 
it would be the duty of the teacher of thisf class, A, 
let us say, to transfer such children to the teacher of 
class B of the same department, — not necessarily to 
remain in class B until the B teacher should pro- 
mote her class as a whole to the secondary transition 
department and start again with a class of young- 
sters coming from the primary transition depart- 
ment, but each one of these children should remain 
until the teacher and the supervising authority 
should feel satisfied that he was mentally and phys- 
ically mature enough to enter upon the next stage of 
school life. When her pupils should have about 
reached the completion of the stage of boyhood and 
girlhood proper, as contradistinguished from the 
stage of pubescence, the elementary department 
teacher's work with her class would be done, and she 
would pass the young people on to the teachers of the 
secondary transition department, regardless of 
whether each and all of them could tell the year and 
day of the battle of Antietam, could work so many 
problems in percentage in so many minutes, could 
extract the cube root of a number, or even whether 
one or more of them were deficient in some pretty 
simple matter that the normal child might well be 
expected to master in the elementary department. 

The teacher's duty would be discharged when she 
had done her best for each child under her care ; uni- 
formity of result would not be required, she would 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 29 

be judged in a large way, not by minute tests. The 
supervising officer would visit lier class from time to 
time (not at fixed periods), would observe her work, 
and would find out how the children were getting 
on under her care ; the supervisor would also know 
what was being done in the other classes, and how 
well, on the average, the children trained by the 
teacher under consideration were conducting them- 
selves and doing their work in the next stage of 
school life. Further than this, records of the char- 
acteristics, the physical and mental peculiarities of 
each child would be kept throughout its school life. 
With such means at hand for estimating the value of 
a teacher's work, she could under the proposed plan 
be given a very large freedom to reach results in her 
own way. She could vary the usual daily program 
by taking the children into the fields or woods in 
order to study nature, or to visit some industrial 
establishment in order to become acquainted with 
manual and mechanical processes and some business 
methods, whenever it might seem wise for her to do 
so. Supervising officers, courses of study, text books, 
school programs — all these would still be at hand to 
help the teacher in her work, but she would no 
longer be in bondage to them. 

Last, but by no means least, in this connection let 
it be emphasized that under the organization of the 
schools proposed it would not only be possible for the 
teacher to learn to know her children well, to know 
each member of her class throughout a fairly long 



30 THE REOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

period,* one of the most natural results of which 
would be to develop a strong sympathy between teach- 
ers and pupils (for, as Henry Ware has very beauti- 
fully said in his novel "Zenobia", to love each other 
we chiefly need to know each other, it is ignorance 
that begets suspicion and dislike), but, as a result 
of this full knowledge of a large number of young 
persons during the whole of a natural period of 
psycho-physical development, the teacher would come 
to understand this stage of human development as no 
teacher can be expected to understand any stage of 
development under our present system of grading. 
In a word, the teacher would be enabled to do a 
large work in a large way. The educational factory 
operative of today, always under a nervous strain to 
complete a stint (and an impossible one!) within a 
fixed time, could then (and I believe that in most 
cases she would then) become a joyous artist, en- 
gaged in one of the most beautiful and fascinating, 
as well as one of the noblest occupations that life af- 
fords. 

Section 4. Turning now from the teacher to the 



* Many schools have come to appreciate the importance of 
this, and in the German gymnasium it is customary for the 
ordinarius (the teacher who gives instruction to the class in at 
least one of its principal studies and who is especially in charge 
of it as a class teacher, although under the departmental system 
even the lowest class has several teachers) of the lowest class 
(sexta), composed of boys of nine or ten, to continue as ordi- 
narius and principal instructor of this group of boys while they 
are passing through the next two annual classes (quinta and 
quarta). That is to say. there will be in the gymnasium three 
teachers, every one of whom in turn will take charge of the 
lowest class and carry the group of boys through the first three 
years of the gymnasium. 



THE REORGANIZATIOl^ OF OUR SCHOOLS 31 

pupil, it is to be said that one of the chief reasons 
for proposing the plan under consideration is, that 
in the case of a dull child, whose interest his teacher 
has been unable to awaken sufficiently to lead him to 
a mastery of the subject of instruction, it is an in- 
jury, rather than a benefit, to keep him droning over 
the same subject-matter twice the normal length of 
time. If the child's failure to make the minimum of 
normal progress is due to some temporary cause, as 
illness, a protracted absence, or the like, it will ordi- 
narily no doubt be advisable to transfer him (not at 
the expiration of some arbitrarily fixed period for the 
continuation of a class, but at once) to a class which 
is not so far advanced as that with which he had pre- 
viously been working ; but if the failure to make nor- 
mal progress is due to a more permanent condition, 
— to general mental incapacity (not sufficient to in- 
dicate that he should be in a special school for the 
feeble-minded, and not the result of some particular 
sense defect or other cause that can be determined 
and given special treatment), to mental lethargy, to 
a lack of interest in school matters, even to continu- 
ous irregularity of attendance or chronic ill health, 
— the child (if not removed from the common school, 
for the benefit of his physical, mental and moral 
health) should be kept moving forward, at a slow 
pace, it may be, but at a pace no slower than the 
general rate of his psycho-physical development, and 
in association with children whose stage of psycho- 
physical development corresponds in a general way 



32 THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 

with his own. I do not mean that it will never be 
found wholesome to try the plan of having him go 
over, with a different teacher and a younger set of 
children, a part of the work he has previously been 
over. These changed conditions may occasionally af- 
ford the needed stimulus and help the child to better 
results — the change of teacher may be especially help- 
ful. But to repeat this process again and again, and 
insist that he shall make a certain, fixed, minimal 
response to definite tests of attainment before being 
allowed to advance, and thus make it impossible for 
him to get out of the primary de]3artment before he is 
twelve years old, or to leave the elementary depart- 
ment until he is an adolescent of sixteen or more — 
this is a futile waste of the child's time, is almost 
certain to have a pernicious eifect upon his moral 
and mental, and even upon his physical development, 
and is likely to make him a failure in life from every 
point of view. When it has become apparent that he 
will not keep pace with any group of pupils, what 
benefit is to' come from demoting him from that 
group with which his general development most 
nearly corresponds, putting him into a strange envi- 
ronment, and disheartening him by associating him 
with younger pupils into whose company he comes 
under the disadvantage, not alone of being a stranger 
and in a different stage of development, but of being 
one who is known to have failed to hold his o^vn with 
his previous associates ! Let us have common sense 
enough to recognize that there is a considerable num- 



THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 33 

ber of children who are not likely to get a great 
amount of benefit from any kind of systematic, in- 
tellectual training. In such cases, so long as they 
are in the stages of childhood and boyhood and girl- 
hood proper (as distinguished from adolescence), let 
the school do what it can for them ; let them advance 
through the school with their fellows and get what 
they can absorb from the school atmosphere and the 
class work as they go along. They may then, and 
very probably will, find something in some part of the 
curriculum to which they will respond with some 
zest and success. But whether they do so or not, 
let them leave the elementary school as soon as they 
have passed beyond the stage of boyhood and girl- 
hood proper, the prepubescent stage; and if nothing 
can be done to make good in the secondary transi- 
tion department their previous deficiencies, and if 
nothing in the school for adolescents seems to call 
forth any response in them, let them leave school and 
go to work after a year or so in the special transition 
class for those who are passing from boyhood or girl- 
hood into adolescence. Let them at least, at each 
stage in their development, have the chance for edu- 
cation (in the large sense of that term) that is given 
by a suitable environment for the given stage of de- 
velopment, instead of holding them prisoners in an 
outgrown environment designed for those at a lower 
stage of maturity. Some day, it is to be hoped, 
school authorities will understand that it is the busi- 
ness of the school as a social institution to afford the 



34 THE EEOEGANIZATIOI^ OP OUE SCHOOLS 

most favorable opportunities for the development of 
the young person, bnt that it is not its business to 
insist upon making him master of a certain definite 
quantum of fact and facility. 

The failure to recognize the importance of adapt- 
ing the school work to the stage of the pupil's general 
development, which has made the school a place of 
torment, often a place of hopeless discouragement 
to so many pupils in the past, has another side than 
that referred to in the last paragraph. I refer to 
the grave injury that come from allowing mentally 
precocious children to go as fast as their mental 
power, and especially their mental acquisitiveness, 
may render possible, regardless of their physical de- 
velopment. The only safe method is to plan the cur- 
riculum with reference to the general development 
of the being to be educated; and in case the mental 
development, on the one hand, and the general phys- 
ical development on the other, seem to correspond 
ill,* let the general physical development be given 
first consideration. This method of procedure, un- 
fortunately, has not yet gained the approval it de- 
serves, although it is long since it was first suggested. 
In answer to the suggestion made by Superintendent 
Harrington, of New Bedford, in 1874, that instead 
of keeping dull children a great length of time on an 

* A case that is always exceptional, although every teacher of 
large experience has probably known some young person or per- 
sons in whom the divergence was sufficient to be troublesome, 
although not sufficient to constitute the person in question 
monstrous and so make ordinary methods of education entirely 
Inapplicable. 



THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 35 

inelastic curriculum, a minimum core of work should 
be provided for these, which could be indefinitely ex- 
panded for the brighter children, Superintendent 
Hervey,* of Auburn, JST. Y., after commending cer- 
tain aspects of the plan, said : ^'It has the disadvan- 
tage ... of not providing for the more rapid 
advancement through the grades of those who, with- 
out detriment to themselves, could cover the ground 
in a shorter time." At the bottom of this criticism 
there seems to me to lie a very serious misconception. 
There are doubtless exceptional human beings whom 
no general plan of education would fit ; but it cannot 
be too emphatically insisted that, speaking generally, 
the rapid advancement through the grades of a phys- 
ically immature person having an unusually quick 
and vigorous intellect, is not a desideratum, hut a 
grave evil. The contrary notion has arisen from the 
fact that the school has so long been considered — 
and has, alas ! so largely been — merely an institution 
for imparting information, or at best as a place for 
mental training; it has not yet come to be generally 
recognized as that which modern pedagogy is mak- 
ing it, an organized instrumentality to assist the im- 
mature being to the highest development possible for 
his whole nature, physical and moral, no less than 
intellectual. The human being, let it be repeated, 
is a psycho-physical unit ; and least of all in the case 
of the child, the immature being, can one part of his 

*At the time he wrote the criticism, Supermtendent of Schools 
for Pawtucket, R. I. See Rhode Island School Report for 1899 
page 116. ' 



36 THE EEOKGANIZATIOI^ OF OUR SCHOOLS 

nature be properly cultivated in disregard of the rest. 
The plan which I advocate provides for the promo- 
tion of the pupil from one department into another 
as soon as he shall have completed the psycho-physical 
period of development to v^hich the former depart- 
ment is adapted, v^hether he has gained much Or 
little information, much or little physical, psychical 
or moral training, in the class covering the previous 
period; and this, I confidently maintain (and cite 
the whole literature of child study in support of my 
contention), is the only advancement through the 
grades that can he had "without detriment to the 
pupil." The prepubescent child of twelve should 
not be put in harness with the adolescent of sixteen, 
notwithstanding that the former's mental brightness 
and familiarity with literature, science and history 
may be even superior to the latter's. Let the child 
pursue his subjects of study according to the general 
method adapted to his stage of development (al- 
though he may do more extensive or more elaborate 
work within the given fields than most of his class- 
mates), and let him put his surplus energy into the 
physical exercise that may protect him from the del- 
icacy and ill health to which precocious children are 
so often subject. 

My contention does not mean that a child is to be 
in a given class just because his tale of years is of a 
given length, nor that he is to be kept in it just so 
many years, months, or days. If, as sometimes hap- 
pens, the child of twelve is physically as well as 



THE EEORGANIZATIOJ!^ OF OUK SCHOOLS 37 

mentally mature as the average child of fourteen or 
fifteen hj all means put him with the latter, and do 
this whether or not he has acquired as much informa- 
tion and discipline as the average child at the com- 
pletion of the elementary school period. If he has 
not, it is unfortunate ; but we shall not mend matters 
by treating him as a hoy after he has become a youth. 
If the elementary or boyhood department of school 
has done little for him, we must look to the adoles- 
cent school in the hope that it may do more for him. 
Section 5. To carry out the plan of organization 
of school work herein proposed, especially in the 
matter of determining when children have completed 
a certain stage of psycho-physical development, it is 
desirable, of course, that in every city school system 
there should be an expert physician, who has made 
a special study of childhood in all its phases, to act 
as physical examiner and sanitary expert. Such an 
expert is, however, very much needed under existing 
systems of school administration, to look after the 
health of the children and save those defective in 
some one or more particulars from the burden of 
unsuitable requirements. ^Nevertheless, in the absence 
of such a thoroughly qualified physician to examine 
the children from time to time and consult with the 
class teacher and principals as to the advisability of 
transferring pupils from one department of the 
school to another, a competent superintendent in the 
smaller school communities and the superintendent 
and principal or other supervising officers in large 



38 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 

school systems could do quite well all tliat the class 
teacher with a fair normal school training might not 
reasonably be expected to do. When in accordance 
with educational and physiological expert advice, 
based upon careful observation and experiment, the 
normal average number of years for the duration of 
the play school and the elementary school classes had 
once been determined, there w^ould as a rule be no 
special call for watchfulness on the part of any but 
the transition-class teachers ; and indeed, inasmuch 
as the relation of the secondary transition class to 
the work of the high school proper or adolescent 
school that follows it, is such that any youth could 
with advantage enter upon the work of the latter as 
soon as he had received the required instruction in 
the former, whether that should take one or two 
years, the only position that would regularly call for 
any special competence in judging when to advance 
a pupil from one class to another, would be that of the 
primary-transition class teacher. By observing a 
wise conservatism and not promoting the children to 
the elementary department until it should seem quite 
beyond a reasonable doubt that they were physically 
fit to undertake the work of the elementary depart- 
ment, the primary-transition teacher could discharge 
her task without great difficulty; her experience 
Avould soon make her expert, and meanwhile (and 
always) she could refer any doubtful case to the 
supervising authority, the principal or superintend- 
ent, and she and they could always consult with the 



THE KEOEGANIZATIOi!^ OF OUK SCHOOLS 39 

parents and family physician in case of exceptional 
ditKculty. 

As regards these transfers, the proper plan might 
be to make the normal period for the com- 
pletion of the work of the play school and the ele- 
mentary school somewhat shorter than the time which 
the average child takes to pass through the corre- 
sponding stages of psycho-physical development, so 
that the children would be regularly passed into the 
transition classes at a date that would be so early in 
the case of the normal child as to ensure that he was 
not being kept under educational influences that he 
had outgrown. As regards the primary transition 
class, its spirit and in large measure its method 
would be so similar to that of the play school — differ- 
ing only in allowing a little more freedom to individ- 
ual idiosyncrasy and a little more relaxation — 
that neither the exceptionally forward nor the ex- 
ceptionally backward child would be harmed by being 
transferred to it at the same time with the average 
child. The latter would remain there a longer, the 
former, a shorter time; that would be alL As re- 
gards transfers from the elementary department to 
the secondary transition class, restiveness and un- 
satisfactory response to the method of the elementary 
department would be a sufficient indication for an 
early transfer in the case of a physically precocious 
child ; a slightly backward child would not be harmed 
by being transferred when the rest of his classmates 
are, and the case of an exceptionally backward child, 



40 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

who should be kept longer in the elementary depart- 
ment, would be sufficiently patent to give no intelli- 
gent teacher or supervising officer any difficulty. 

A little consideration, I think, will make evident 
that, instead of increasing the burden of responsibility 
upon teachers, the proposed system would (except in 
the case of the primary transition class teachers) 
relieve them of a great part of the responsibility 
that now rests upon them. The play school teacher 
would work with her class for, say, two years, do all 
that she could for the healthy development of every 
one of her pupils within that time, and then send 
them all to the primary transition class, without hav- 
ing to bother her head to determine whether every 
individual in the class had attained a ^ ^promotion 
grade.'' Similarly the elementary department teach- 
er would teach her class for four year (if that should 
be the period determined upon by the school authori- 
ties) and then transfer to the secondary transition 
class all but the very exceptionally immature (who 
would ordinarily be transferred to the elementary 
class next below hers, leaving her free to take a new 
class from the primary transition department). And 
normally the secondary-transition teachers also 
would simply give their instruction for a year and 
then let the young people pass on to the adolescent de- 
partment or high school. The primary transition class 
teacher alone would always have to use judgment in 
determining when to advance her children to the 
next class; and in case of marked backwardness in 



THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 41 

development or special delicacy tlie chief secondary 
transition teacher would have to determine whether 
to keep the young person longer than a year in her 
department. 

It is true, as indicated above, that the elementary 
department teacher may have to deal with excep- 
tional cases. She may find it well to advance a rapid- 
ly maturing child into the secondary transition class 
before the completion of the term of years established 
for the continuance of her class, or to transfer him 
to another class of the elementary department, in ad- 
vance of her own ; and in the case of an especially 
slowly developing child, she may find it well to ad- 
vise that he be put into the next elementary class 
below hers, instead of proceeding with the rest of 
her class. But it must be remembered that these ex- 
ceptional cases exist and need special treatment just 
as much (more, in my opinion) under any other sys- 
tem of school organization as they would under that 
proposed ; and if teachers (making a special exception 
of the primary transition teacher) are not compe- 
tent to deal with the system proposed, they must (in 
view of their inferior opportunities) be even less 
competent to meet satisfactorily the difficulties of 
the prevailing system of organization. And finally 
it may be well to call attention again to the fact that 
it would be the especial business of the principals 
and other supervising officers to be on the lookout for 
these exceptional cases and to advise the class teach- 
ers regarding them, and that it would be the duty of 



42 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

the principal or superintendent to take the chief bur- 
den of determining transfers from the primary tran- 
sition class in case snch a class should have to be 
entrusted to an inexperienced teacher (which should 
not ordinarily be the case). 

As to the details of the organization of supervision, 
whether there should be a principal for each of the 
school departments (play school, primary transition 
department, elementary department, secondary 
transition department, and adolescent department, 
or high school) or whether two or more of these should 
be under the same principal, this would have to be 
determined by local conditions, the size of the schools 
and of the school system, etc., and in some measure 
by the personal equation. The superintendent should 
have as many assistants, principals or head teachers 
to help him in the supervision of the schools as he 
may find necessary. But it may be- said in general 
that it would be advisable to associate the play school 
and the primary transition department especially 
closely, and that the most competent and experienced 
teacher working in any one department of the school 
might be recognized as a sort of head teacher for that 
department, to whom the other teachers could look 
for counsel and who would be entitled to give such 
counsel on her own initiative. As regards the sec- 
ondary transition department, the instruction in the 
several regular courses should be given by specialists, 
who might also be instructors in the high school prop- 
er ; but there should be one principal teacher for the 



N 



THE KEOKGANIZATIOI^ OF OUE SCHOOLS 43 

secondary transition department, wlio should have 
general charge of the class, and who might well be 
the teacher who would be immediately charged with 
the especial work of the more backward members of 
the class. 

Section 6. A number of the special questions that 
may be suggested by the foregoing discussion can 
only be answered intelligently after a somewhat par- 
ticular consideration of the scope of the several de- 
partments, or periods of school life corresponding to 
the several normal stages of psycho-physical develop- 
ment referred to in Postulate III. To such a partic- 
ular consideration the reader's attention is now 
invited. 



11. 

As to the Scope of the Several Departments of the 

School, 

Section 1. The Play School. 

First of all comes the play school, in which the 
child should normally begin his school career and in 
which he should remain during the first stage of 
psycho-physical development with which the school 
is concerned, which we have designated as the stage of 
childhood proper, as distinguished from the preceed- 
ing stage of infancy and the later stage of boyhood 



44 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

or girlhood proper. It is hardly necessary to state 
that the stage or stages of infancy prior to the third 
year of life, need not be taken into account by us in 
•considering the organization of school education, for 
the consensus of opinion is practically unanimous 
that, under the social conditions that prevail in the 
civilized world today, the home is the most suitable 
place for the education of the little being that has not 
yet passed out of the stage of infancy. 

With regard to the fairly well marked stage of 
childhood, for which the play school is designed, I 
shall not repeat here what competent observers and 
students have set forth in regard to it, but will con- 
tent myself with a reference to the article in the 
Pedagogical Seminary for 1900 (volume 7) entitled 
"ISTascent Stages and their Pedagogical Significance," 
by Mr. E. B. Bryan, at one time Superintendent of 
Education in the Philippines, an article that from 
the standpoint of pedagogy gives the best summary of 
the several stages of human development with which 
I am familiar. I shall, however, recall to my readers' 
minds that this is a stage of fairly steady growth 
in height and weight and a period of great mental 
activity, but one in which, ^^owing to a lack of devel- 
opment of the peripheral muscles and the nerves that 
control them,'' the movements of the child "are un- 
coordinated, so that he is not effective as a producer, 
and activity is its own excuse for being" ; and I would 
also recall that this stage of development, beginning 
normally about the completion of the second year of 



THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 45 

post-natal life, seems to end about the eiglitli year 
in the case of most American children, when "the 
brain has approximated its full weight and is chang- 
ing in, its development from increase in size to in- 
crease of function^' ; and I would finally remind my 
readers that in addition to this brain change there is 
also, at the time of completion of this stage of devel- 
opment, "a change in the rate of bodily growth, so 
that the annual increase will be greater at the begin- 
ning of this [new or transition^ stage than it has 
been through the stage of childhood. The child is 
losing his first teeth and the permanent ones are com- 
ing. This more objective and superficial change seen 
in the case of the teeth has many physical and mental 
counterparts,'' so that "the child is not quite at its 
best either physically or mentally." 

The play school should be primarily devoted to 
healthy development and the cultivation — or let us 
rather say, the encouragemoni --of wide interests, not 
to instilling into the child's mind a definite quantum 
of exact information, nor to constant drill in the use 
of the "three R's," the elementary tools of scholarly 
acquisition and expression. As everyone knows, the 
child at this period is an animated interrogation 
point (that is, until his great natural "curiosity" — 
perhaps his divinest gift — has been dulled by the un- 
responsiveness and continued snubbing of those 
about him), and desires to know about everything, 
to imitate every activity, and in general to do every- 
thing that is suggested to him by his environment 



46 THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 

and by the development of his physical and mental 
powers; and it is of the utmost importance for his 
future development, even more than for his present 
richness of life, that this catholicity of inteeest 
and high-hearted readiness to try his powers upon 
everything should he cultivated. 

Incidental to the cultivation of this inclination to 
find interest in all that is, in every department of 
human knowledge and human activity, it should be 
as easy as it is desirable to lead the child before the 
expiration of this period of his development, to the 
perception that the ability to measure and to count 
and the ability to understand and to use written as 
well as oral language will contribute much to his 
happiness, by enabling him to do things that he al- 
ready wishes to do, and to find out things for him- 
self. If this much be accomplished at this time, it 
will be found that when he reaches the age for 
systematic training in the three R's he will take up 
his work in arithmetic and in reading and writing 
with the zest that comes from understanding the pur- 
pose, and having a present appreciation of the value 
of these studies, instead of regarding them as a more 
or less mysterious drudgery to which children are 
subjected by grown-ups on the assumption that when 
the children themselves become grown-ups they will 
have a use for it all. 

As regards the other studies to be systematically 
pursued as special subjects in later school life, such 
as history, geography, and physical, chemical and 



THE EEORGANIZATIOW OF OUK SCHOOLS 47 

biological science, a proper interest in them will be 
aroused by the nature study, by the observation and 
imitation of living things and of the simpler and 
more readily comprehensible and imitable forms of 
adult human occupation, and by the plays and the 
stories that should take up the time and constitute 
the play-work of this period of school life. 

It is through the play-impulse and the delight in 
discovery that the child's mind and body should be 
developed at this period ; but with reference to play, 
it is well to remember that elaborately organized 
"plays'' are not suited to the child at this time and 
are really hard work for him. The children should 
be given large opportunity for free play, play that 
will not only be spontaneous, but that must in large 
measure be individual. Very simple joint plays, 
either ring plays, in which all or a moiety of the 
children do the same thing at the same time, or plays 
of the follow-my-leader type, in which the children 
successively do the same thing (provided plays of the 
latter type be of short duration) or, on the other 
hand, very loosely organized plays in which the par- 
ticipants are at liberty to carry on their several parts 
very much in their own way, will doubtless be good ; 
but much "team work," as that term is now generally 
understood in the field of sport — that is to say, 
elaborate cooperative plays in which the individual 
members perform different functions in the perform- 
ance of which the player must subordinate his play 
to the interest of a final end to be attained by the 



48 THE EEORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

group as a group, — would be serious work for a child, 
and would constitute a strain upon his physical 
powers of cooperation that would probably be as 
injurious to his healthy development as physical 
exercises that should demand accurate coordi- 
nation of the finer muscles. There should not 
be expected or even permitted at this time any 
functioning of mind or body so elaborate as to draw 
largely upon the vital energy, which in childhood 
must be primarily devoted to increase in bulk and 
organization of the brain and nervous system and of 
the muscular system and the rest of the body. 

In so far as the child's occupation is free play, 
carried on for the delight of doing it and given up 
by each child the moment he wearies of it, he may be 
allowed great range; but, bearing in mind that the 
object of WORK "is a definite product, physical or 
mental", the worh of the play school should be lim- 
ited to those kinds of activity for which the child has 
a fair degree of capacity, those in which he can work 
with facility; and in occupations of this sort he 
should of course be encouraged to do as well as he 
can. While the occupations of the play school should, 
I think, be mainly play, some work should be de- 
manded of the child for the sake of his moral develop- 
ment, lest his nascent power of self-control should 
become somewhat atrophied from disuse and his 
spiritual nature be arrested in that pre-moral stage 
of egoism perfectly natural to the young child. 

As regards the content of the instruction given to 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 49 

the child at this time, let me speak first of the tradi- 
tional three R's. It seems to me that arithmetic, 
reading and writing, should only be taught to the ex- 
tent that is found thoroughly enjoyable by the child 
at this age, and only for periods in any given day so 
brief that the children's attention may be readily 
held throughout them. Board work in reading and 
writing should precede the use of books or paper. 
At the end of this period the child may have learned 
to read from the board and from large-print books 
very short and simple compositions, — stories, descrip- 
tions and songs, — and he may also be able to work 
very simple "mental" arithmetical problems in count- 
ing, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, 
and be able to read and write the digits and to under- 
stand the place of units, tens and hundreds. But with 
little regard to the extent of the acquirements gained 
here, I think that arithmetic should be taken up sys- 
tematically in the elementary department in such a 
way that the child who had failed to get any idea of 
number work in the play school or the primary 
transition department might make a fresh start in 
this later school period. 

^JsTature study and the imitation of simple forms of 
adult occupation ; descriptions of early stages of 
human society, and stories from early periods of his- 
tory illustrated by pictures and simple reconstruct- 
tions, cave and wigwam making, weaving, sand and 
clay modeling, simple gardening and cooking ; myths ; 
healthy free play and exercises that do not strain the 



50 THE EEOEGAIS'IZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 

undeveloped psychic powers of cooperation or the un- 
developed physical powers of accurate coordination; 
such loving little services for relatives and friends 
as are quite within the child's powers, — these should 
constitute the bulk of the curriculum of the play 
school. 

As regards myths, generally associated as they are 
with the phenomena of nature or with phenomena of 
moral consciousness, it should be said in passing that 
they should never be given as pure stories quite with- 
out explanation or introduction, nor should they be 
elaborately analyzed and the allegory set forth with 
great circumstantiality. They should rather be pre- 
sented as stories coming down from early times, 
either representing a belief of that time as to some- 
thing of interest to human life, or else being a man- 
ner of representing that something which gave pleas- 
ure to those from whom we got the myth, and which 
may give pleasure to the children. Whether they 
should be accompanied or followed by a more scien- 
tific representation of the matter in question wouh' 
depend entirely upon the special circumstances of th 
case and upon the imaginative development, the m;^ 
turity and the curiosity of the child or children 
whom the myth is told. But care should always 
taken to present the myth (whether heathen or Bio- 
lical) in such a way that, when the child should la., r 
acquire a more scientific notion of the thing in ques- 
tion, he should not feel that an untruthful represen- 
tation had been made to him by his early teacher. 



THE KEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 51 

As regards moral education in the play school, the 
whole conduct of the school should give it; and right 
conduct upon the part of the child should be taught 
by example and suggestion, by timely, concrete pre- 
cept, by warm approval of serviceableness and sympa- 
thy and consideration for others and of cleanliness 
and orderliness, and also by telling interesting stories 
that the children will love for their own sake, for 
their action and imagery, and that will at the same 
time make virtue appear beautiful, — stories in which 
truthfulness and simplicity, generosity and courtesy 
and respect for the counsel and instructions of those 
who are older and wiser than the hero or heroine or 
upon whom he or she is dependent, shall characterize 
the said hero or heroine. We should avoid trying 
to teach by terrible example. The less suggestion of 
evil, by the presentation of the misadventures of the 
lazy, the filthy, the discourteous, the disobedient, the 
unkind, and the cruel, the better. In special cases, or 
• where lightly and incidentally suggested, this may do 
1. no harm and may occasionally do good ; but the less 
9. of it the better. Avoid especially giving the bad 
-B character the center of the field' or using a bad per- 
ni^on as a foil to bring out the excellences of another. 
' otories of this kind tend to give a false idea of life 
||for in real life we do not find sheep and goats, per- 
'i^i^ci heroes and perfectly wicked villains, but only 
more or less lovable human beings with varying kinds 
and degrees of faultiness) and are quite certain to 
cultivate priggishness even if they do not encourage 



52 THE EEORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

the despicable and soul-destroying tendency to be ever 
on the lookout for inferiority and unrighteousness 
with which to compare one's self or one's heroes, in- 
stead of seeking to make one's life beautiful by doing 
beautiful things without thought of unbeautiful con- 
duct or persons. We should guard also against the 
common disposition to make a myth or Bible story 
or popular anecdote serve a definite moral purpose, 
when if undoctored it might have a quite different ef- 
fect. Above all, in dealing with heroes of history 
or legend, we should never whitewash their conduct 
in a questionable matter ; this is the most dangerous 
form of teaching immorality by suggestion. 

In conclusion I would say that morality is to be 
encouraged in the play school (as every Avhere else) 
chiefly by accustoming the child to moral habits. But 
obedience must, in case of need, be insisted upon, 
even though the child does not understand why he is 
compelled to do the particular thing in question; 
for the child must learn that his general well-being 
is dependent upon submission to his guardians and to 
the various instrumentalities of control established 
by society, and he should learn early the important 
lesson of life, that one cannot, and should not expect 
to, have one's own way in all things. 

Section 2. The Primary Transition Class. 

What needs to be said about this stage of school 
life, in addition to what has already been said imder 
the heading of The Play School, will for the sake of 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 53 

brevity and convenience, be stated in connection with 
the discussion of the Adaptability of the Curriculum 
to Various Classes of Young Persons, in III infra. 



Section 3. The Elementary Department, or 
School of Boyhood and Girlhood Proper. 

A. General View. In this department of school 
life all the required work should be done during 
school hours, except a limited amount of gathering 
material and of individual observation in nature 
study and perhaps also in the study of human occu- 
pations and institutions. There may, however, be a 
considerable amount of optional reading and compo- 
sition work, and once or twice a year in the later 
years of the course the teacher might require the 
preparation of a composition out of school. 

Speaking of this period — the period of boyhood 
and girlhood proper, as distinguished from the pre- 
ceding stage of childhood — Bryan in the work pre- 
viously cited says : "The child is not simply his form- 
er self grown larger, but is in many ways an alto- 
gether different being." "This is the period of en- 
durance and of coordination mental and physical, 
and mental with physical, the time for the storing up 
of reserve power and the establishment of automa- 
tisms^' [Italics mine] . The students of this period of 
development generally agree that it is a period of 
fair strength and coordination and exceptional plas- 



54 THE REOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

ticity of tissue, muscular and neural. Hence it is 
the time for mental drill and practise, and for physi- 
cal drill and practise so far as the resultant physical 
development and training will not be lost by reason 
of the very considerable muscular and neural changes 
taking place at and after pubescence. 

Bryan does well to remind us that attention brings 
interest as truly as interest brings attention, and 
therefore he advises that the attention of bovs and 
girls at this stage of development be directed to 
"those things which serve as the alphabets of formal 
school work" [I should prefer to say, the alphabets 
of the universal (^. e., universally needed) arts of 
civilization], even though at times their interest in 
some lines must be induced by attention to them. As 
to the ease with Avhich this attention may be gained 
and held, he wisely says that "if the time given to 
reading before the child was seven years of age were 
given to real things in which he has a lively interest 
it would bring such a fund of information 
and interest to the reading work at nine years of age 
that the problem of method in teaching reading would 
practically solve itself." 

B. Curriculum. In this stage of school life 
there should be a fairly systematic study of : — 

1. Reckoning, or ''Mathematics'. — The bulk of 
the work in mathematics should doubtless be what 
is designated as arithmetic proper, but in connection 
with this and with the manual training, drawing 
and geography, the elements of concrete geometry 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 55 

would be learned, and I incline to the belief that be- 
fore the expiration of this period of school life there 
should be at least so much algebra introduced as to 
give the boy or girl the idea of dealing with general- 
ized quantities, or, in other words, with literal sym- 
bols."^ It is not necessary that this should be taught 
under the name of 'Algebra" ; it may well be pre- 
sented simply as one aspect of elementary mathe- 
matics. 

To maintain such an elasticity throughout the 
whole school system as to make it adaptable to the 
needs of all classes of school children, however irreg- 
ular special circumstances may compel them to be in 
their attendance ; to make it possible for any boy at 
any given stage in his boyhood to find his proper place 
in the school without primary reference to certain 
definite attainments in school lore, and to enable him 
to leave the school at any time that he may be com- 
pelled to do so, with an education relatively complete 
in reference to his then stage of development, and 
fitting him to make the most of life with the equip- 
ment thus far attained, — it seems to me very desir- 
able that the arithmetic should be taught in what 
is sometimes called the ^^concentric circle" man- 
ner, f the fundamental principles being early learned 
in and through their simplest applications and re- 



* This is done in Germany; and in a number of the best 
schools, where mathematics, rather than "arithmetic", is the 
subject of study, the elements of arithmetic, geometry and al- 
gebra are all acquired simply and naturally in the lower grades. 

t Frank Hall's School Arithmetic is one in which the subject 
is presented in this way. 



56 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 

peated again and again with increasingly difficult ap- 
plications. It has been shown in the better primary 
schools that the principles of fractions may he used 
in their application to simple concrete cases long be- 
fore the pupil has learned the symbols for fractions 
or Tcnows that he knows anything about fractions. 
Does not all work in division, indeed, when intelli- 
gently done and not worked merely in accordance 
with a rule learned by rote, constitute work in frac- 
tions ? 

Finally, let it be said that just so much of mathe- 
matics should be learned by each individual pupil, 
within this period of school life, as he can learn 
without undue effort. There should he no fixed re- 
quirement of hnowledge for graduation from this de- 
partment of the school, and no driving or overwork 
for slow or dull pupils. 

2. Language (Oral speech and its written and 
printed symbols). — ^Writing should of course be sys- 
tematically practised, and the use of the vernacular 
— oral and written composition, reading and spelling 
— should be a constant part of the work in this 
school. In spelling a select list of a few hundred 
difficult or especially irregular words belonging to the 
everyday^' vocabulary of life should be learned, in 
addition to the incidental learning of spelling in con- 
nection with reading and writing. In the latter part 



* Why should the child spend his time learning to spell such 
words as phthysic? In forty years of a somewhat wide expe- 
rience of life, as teacher, lawyer, journalist, etc., I have never 
had any occasion to use the word except as I am using it now. 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 57 

of the course the elements* of grammar should be 
brought to the consciousness of the boy and girl (in 
which work the study of another modern language 
than the vernacular would assist) ; and I am inclined 
to think that some notion of comparative philology 
might be given either by the foreign-language teacher 
or by the class-teacher in connection with the work 
in history and English, but this is doubtful. There 
should of course be systematic development in the 
language work, and the cultivation of a knowledge of 
and love for literature should be a conscious aim on 
the part of the teacher. Yet, throughout, the lan- 
guage work should be coordinated with, and by the 
teacher consciously made a part of, the history, geog- 
raphy and nature study, as indeed of every study in 
the school. 

This is the golden age for the practical acquire- 
ment of a foreign language, and wherever possible at 
least one modern language should be pursued by the 
conversational method throughout this department 
of the school. In the case of pupils who are later to 
study several foreign languages, I should prefer 
French, f both because the difficulties in its pronun- 
ciation are best mastered at this age and because the 
simplicity of its grammar would make its mastery 
easier than that of a more elaborately inflected lan- 



* It seems to me highly unwise to trouble the child with 
minutiae, to set him, for instance, to distinguish nicely between 
adverbial and adjective modifiers in cases as to which it is often 
difficult for specialists in grammar to agree. 

t Today, in a great number of American communities, Span- 
ish would be the most advisable foreign language for the public 
schools. 



58 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

giiage, and would thus bring to the boy or girl the 
stinnilns of success and give him greater confidence 
in himself generally and especially in his ability to 
learn a foreign language. 

3. Tlie Economic and Cultural Development of 
Mankind, or ''History/' — The history of the elemen- 
tary department should not treat merely of the life 
and institutions of the aborigines of America and 
of so much of the recent development of Anglo-Saxon 
civilization as happened to be transferred a few gen- 
erations ago to the American continent, but should 
treat of the general development of human society 
and culture, and especially of economic development, 
which would make the most natural center of interest 
from which to gain some intelligent information as 
to the development of art and science and the accom- 
panying changes in social, political and religious in- 
stitutions that have taken place as men have risen 
from savagery and barbarism to civilization. In 
other words, the conventional study of history should 
in the elementary department be replaced by such a 
study of the social life of man — economic, political, 
religious and esthetic — as shall tend to make the com- 
plex machinery of modern civilization comprehensible 
to the boy and girl by reference to the simpler life of 
a lower stage of human development out of which all 
modern civilization (of which whole our American 
civilization is but one of the parts) has developed. 
The natural sympathy of the pre-adolescent child of 
civilization for the manner of life of less highly de- 



THE REOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 59 

veloped human societies, suggests the best and most 
effective way of giving the child an insight into the 
real significance of history, inasmuch as it affords a 
way of approaching the subject that is full of inter- 
est for him, and even of delight, in proportion as he 
is encouraged to act out and live again in some meas- 
ure the history of the race.^ 

In connection with the study of geography the 
story of the formation of the principal modern na- 
tional states might be given to the boys and girls in 
a very few words, and of course the story of the 
United States and of the boys and girls' home com- 
munity would be treated more fully than other parts 
of history. The work in history would naturally 
bring about an interest in civics. 

Throughout the elementary study of history, biog- 
raphy might well play a large part, but it certainly 
should not be the exclusive method of approaching 
the subject. Geography and the various arts of ex- 
pression — modeling in sand and clay, basket work 
and weaving, wood and perhaps a little metal work, 
brush and pencil work, and of course literature — 
should all make their contribution to the study of 
human development (which I take to be the meaning 
of history) as should also individual and class excur- 
sions. 

4. Geography (physical, political and commer- 



* The elementarj' school forming a part of the University of 
Chicago's School of Education has given the most successful 
illustration of this method of teaching history that is known to 
me. 



60 THE EEOEGANIZATIOiq" OF OUK SCHOOLS 

cial), — never losing sight of the close connection of 
this subject with nature study in general, on the one 
hand, and with human economics, or history, on the 
other. 

5. Nature Study, or Elementary Science^, — in 
which it would be well to keep in mind the associa- 
tions of the subject with geography, as well as to do 
what can be done to lead the child to the gradual 
realization that all human civilization so far attained 
rests upon the partial understanding of nature and 
the application of natural forces. After saying this, 
I need hardly say that, notwithstanding the advocacy 
of the opposite view by such a competent guide to 
nature study as Professor Hodges of Clark Univer- 
sity, I have the strongest conviction that the elemen- 
tary facts of physics and chemistry, and not merely 
the study of plants and animals, should constitute a 
part of the nature study of the elementary depart- 
ment. 

6. Art and Manual Training. — Modeling in sand 
and clay, brush work (with and without color) and 
pencil work, wood work, weaving or basket work, and 
vocal music should be pursued by all; and to these 
other manual arts might be added if convenient, 
while in the latter part of the course elementary 
metal work for boys might, and training in the do- 
mestic arts (housekeeping, cooking and sewing) for 
the girls, should be provided. 

It is to be remembered that the arts of writing and 
reading have already been mentioned under the head- 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 61 

ing Language, and that the boys and girls would gain 
an introduction to a number of the practical arts of 
life through their study of social economics, or "his- 
tory," and their nature study (I have in mind such 
arts as gardening and simple cookery). But I have 
made a special heading of art and manual training 
because there should be a special time set apart for 
systematic training of the hand and eye in coopera- 
tion, and for similar training in singing and the ele- 
ments of music. 

Last, but by no means least, — 

7. Physical Culture should constitute a regular 
part of the work of the school; and in connection 
Avith this branch especially, which should if possible 
be under the supervision of a skilled physician 
trained for the work of a physical director and health 
officer, every effort should be made to study the in- 
dividual needs of the boys and girls and to train them 
in healthful and cleanly habits. 

C. Usual Daily Program. I shall finish this 
section by suggesting a daily program for the elemen- 
tary department. Those who advocate for the ele- 
mentary school manual training, physical culture, 
nature study and the study of the fundamental arts 
and institutions of human society, — what the Ger- 
mans call the Realien, or subjects of actual human 
interest, and what the conservatives call the fads, — 
are continually being asked how these things can be 
taught without crowding out the all-important three 
R's; and while a partial answer to this is that the 



62 THE REOEGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 

modern educator is constantly giving the child train- 
ing in language and number work incidental to his 
study of the things that are of interest to him in na- 
ture and human society, it is desirable to show, in ad- 
dition to this, that ample time can be set aside for 
specific drill in the three R's, the alphabet of scholar- 
ship, without excluding the subjects of actual human 
interest and the training of the mind and body for a 
ready response to the demands of a large, free, beauti- 
ful life. Another reason for suggesting a daily pro- 
gram is to show how conveniently the work of the gen- 
eral class teacher and that of special teachers for mu- 
sic and other forms of art, manual training, physical 
culture and foreign language can be arranged, so that, 
in the case of a fairly large and well-to-do school com- 
munity that can afford to have these special branches 
taught by special teachers, all the work of the gen- 
eral class teacher could be done in the morning, leav- 
ing the children the afternoon for work with the 
special teachers. If, however, the school authorities 
should feel that they could not afford to pay teachers 
for but half a day's work, the program I have sug- 
gested is so far reversible that class-teacher X might 
carry out with class A the program as proposed herein 
for the morning session, and then in the afternoon re- 
peat with Class B the program set forth for the morn- 
ing, of course with the omission of the opening exer- 
cises ; class B having taken in the forenoon with the 
special teachers the work which class A will do, ac- 
cording to the program set forth, in the afternoon. Of 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 03 

course the order of the subjects in the session taught 
by special teachers would naturally be changed for the 
diif erent classes — class A, for instance, taking the pro- 
gram as set forth, while the next class might give the 
first period to French, take the second period for phys- 
ical culture, etc. — so as to enable the same teacher to 
take three or four classes in turn. But on the other 
hand the order of exercises for the session taught by 
the general class teacher (the ^^morning session,'' as 
it appears below) should preferably be followed by 
all classes throughout the whole school, so that, in 
case any pupil should in some particular subject be 
very much behind or ahead of his classmates, he could 
take that subject with a class below or above that in 
which the rest of his work were done. The conven- 
ience of a uniform program throughout the school 
system for such a case as I have mentioned and for 
others which may occur to the reader, is obvious, but 
this program should not become a straight- jacket for 
the teacher, to be followed to the letter at any cost ; it 
should merely be the usual thing. Freedom on the 
part of the teacher in the execution of the general 
purpose of the school should be encouraged, and she 
might not infrequently find it advantageous to give 
all or the greater part of the session to an excursion 
into the woods or fields, or to a visit to some indus- 
trial establishment, or to work in the school garden, 
or indeed she might find that with a certain class more 
time should be given to reading and less to arithme- 
tic than the program provided for. In all such cases 



64 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

she should be free to use her own judgment, of course 
consulting her principal or other supervisor with re- 
gard to any considerable variation from the standard 
program and of course being responsible for the re- 
sults of such changes as she might introduce. In 
general it may be said that the program, as well as 
the curriculum itself, should not be an iron-bound 
groove, or track, within which the teacher must travel 
without a hair's breadth turn to right or left, but it 
should rather be a cleared path along which she 
would generally be helped by moving. It should 
exist, not to cabin, crib, confine teachers and chil- 
dren, but to help them. 

It will be observed that all the work of the school 
except the art work, manual training, physical cul- 
ture, foreign language, and elective work, can be given 
in the morning session ; but I think that an afternoon 
session having a maximum length of two hours and 
a half is not at all too much, especially when it is 
borne in mind that the plan contemplates no required 
home work. Eor boys and girls between eight or 
nine and thirteen, five hours and a half a day of in- 
teresting school work is not too much ; and I am in- 
clined to think that much less would be a serious loss 
to them. It must be remembered that of this ^ve 
hours and a half, only two hours and twenty minutes 
in the morning session and thirty-five minutes in the 
afternoon are given to mental, as distinct from physi- 
cal and manual training ; the rest of the time is taken 
up by recess and intermissions, physical culture, man- 



THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OTJK SCHOOLS 65 

ual training and art work. As to the nearly three 
hours a day given to mental training and instruction, 
the class teacher might not give much more than half 
the time to class or group recitation from the same 
group of children ; the rest of the time being devoted 
to study, either by the class as a whole or by that 
part of it which spent the other moiety of the time 
in recitation. Of course I do not mean by thus dis- 
tinguishing study and recitation that the class exer- 
cise or recitation should be a mere examination by 
the teacher of the boys and girls' acquisition; it 
should be primarily, I am inclined to think, the op- 
portunity for the teacher to help the children to a 
proper appreciation of the matter in hand. If in a 
given subject the teacher had not divided the children 
into groups for recitation, she could spend that part 
of the time not used for a class exercise in individual 
work with different pupils, the others meanwhile 
studying. If the class were large she would probably 
have with her, part of the time at least, an assistant 
teacher, or training-school cadet, who would be doing 
individual work with members of those groups not 
at the time engaged in a class or group recitation. I 
have suggested a noon recess of two hours, and I think 
that this would normally be best for both pupils and 
teachers; especially when it is remembered that the 
school is not to be (as in the past it has too largely 
been) a place in which the child is to receive drill 
in the three R's and acquire a limited amount of in- 
formation as to geography and a few other facts; 



66 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 

but that it is tlie child's opportunity, his most favor- 
able opportunity, for preparing himself to play an 
intelligent, a useful and happy part in the natural 
and social environment in which his life exists. He 
should do this in a somewhat leisurely way, without 
undue haste, and should ^^live by the way.'' "Keep- 
ing in" should be strictly prohibited at noon, and 
should only be allowed in the afternoon, if it should 
play any part at all in school life, in such exceptional 
cases as deliberate refusal on the part of the pupil 
to make any attempt to do his work at the proper 
time, or as a punishment for malicious interference 
with the work of the school. In such cases, the teach- 
ers of the different classes could take turns in stay- 
ing after school with pupils, so that no teacher would 
have to remain often. Of course the length of the 
noon recess would have to be determined bv local 
conditions, but the initial prejudice of teachers and 
pupils in favor of a short recess, so as to make the 
free part of the afternoon longer, should not be 
given too much weight. A long, quiet noon recess, 
making a real break in the day, would be of more 
value than forty-five minutes gained in the afternoon 
by rushing through the day. 

Attention should perhaps be called to the fact that, 
although the system proposed has so far assumed that 
there would be special teachers for all of the subjects 
assigned to the afternoon session, yet all of the work 
but the foreign language could be given by the class 
teacher if properly trained in a good, modern nor- 



THE EEORGAlSriZATIOjSr OF OUR SCHOOLS 67 

mal school. In case there were no special teachers 
(as would probably be the case in most of our smaller 
communities) the modern language would doubtless 
be omitted from the school curriculum and the time 
set apart for it might be devoted to study by the class 
and individual assistance by the teacher. 

In practice it would probably be well to dismiss 
most of the children at the end of the third afternoon 
period ; for any additional work that might be elected 
— whether in music, a second foreign language, danc- 
ing, drawing or painting, manual training or what- 
ever else it might be — would be more likely in most 
communities to be taken privately than in school. 
Provision for such outside work seems to me to be a 
matter of great importance ; one of the most serious 
defects of our school system today being that it so 
fills up the time of the child as to leave no opportunity 
for the cultivation of a special talent. As a result of 
this the musically or otherwise artistically gifted 
child is too often driven to forfeit a general education 
for the sake of properly cultivating his talent. To 
return to the use to be made in school of the fourth 
afternoon period, I would suggest that it would be 
well to divide the class into several groups, each one 
of which would remain in school the fourth afternoon 
period at least once a week, to receive individual help 
from the teacher or to study under her supervision. 

Turning now to the program itself, I would explain 
thpt where the subject is not repeated five times a 
week th^' fionire in parenthesis after the name of the 



68 THE KEORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

subject indicates the number of times a week it ap- 
pears in the daily order of exercises. Where two or 
more subjects are grouped together, a + sign indi- 
cates the desirability of devoting to the subject at 
least the number of hours stated and perhaps more, 
while a — sign indicates that the number of hours 
stated is a maximum, which might be lessened. 

Daily Progeam for Elementary Departmei^t 

Morning Session, 9 — 12 A. M. 

A. M. Minutes 

9.00 Opening Exercises and Singing, 15 

9.15 Reckoning and Mathematics, 35* 

9.50 Intermission (brief), 5* 

9.55 Writing (3) and Spelling (2), 35 

10.30 Intermission (longer) 15 

10.45 Development of Civilization, or History 
(3 — ) and Geography and Na- 
ture Study (2+) 35 
11.20 Intermission (brief), 5 
11.25 Reading (4 at first, 2 later). Composi- 
tion (1+) and Grammar (last 
two years, 2), .35 

Afternoon Session, 2 — 4.30 P. M. 

2.00 Manual Training (2), Drawing (2), and 

Music (1), 35 

2.35 Intermission (brief), 5 



* Or 30-minute class periods and correspondingly longer in- 
termissions. 



THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 69 

2.40 Manual Training, cont'd (2), A Modern 
language or period for study and 
individual help from teacher 

,(^), 35 

3.15 Intermission (brief), 5 

3.20 Physical Culture, 35 

3.55 Intermission (brief), 5 

4.00 Optional Elective (4 — ) and Period for 

individual help from teacher 

(1+) 30 

Note. — It may seem unnecessary, if not absurd, to 
have the usual five-minute intermission before and 
after the period for physical culture but, aside from 
every other consideration, it is to be remembered that 
where there are special teachers the program as above 
set forth can only be that of one of the classes ; the 
second class must take the afternoon subjects in a 
different order ; the third in a still different order ; 
hence the necessity for arranging the program so that 
a brief intermission shall follow every class period. 
Of course in case the subjects scheduled for the morn- 
ing session are given in the afternoon, the necessity 
for the five-minute intermission at the end of every 
period but the last becomes still more evident. 

SECTioisr 4. The Secondary Transition Depart- 
ment^ OR THE School for Pubescents. 

A. In General : — Between the stage of develop- 
ment characterized as boyhood and girlhood proper, 



70 THE EEOEGANIZATIOl^ OF OUE SCHOOLS 

the stage for which our elementary department (cor- 
responding roughly to what in American schools is 
sometimes designated as the intermediate department 
or the grammar school) is provided, and the stage of 
adolescence proper, for which the secondary depart- 
ment, or school for adolescents, or high school is de- 
signed, comes the transition stage of pubescence ; and 
important practical economic reasons combine with 
theoretical pedagogical principles drawn from the 
study of genetic psychology, to makd it advisable to 
plan a special curriculum for that critical year in 
the life of the young person in which he or she passes 
from boyhood or girlhood proper into adolescence. 
Such a curriculum for the secondary transition de- 
partment of the school will now be proposed. I fore- 
see that no part of this little work is likely to be 
more severely criticised than this curriculum for a 
secondary transition year; and yet I am inclined to 
think it doubtful whether any suggestion contained 
in this essay is of greater practical value than what 
is here proposed for that year of school life which 
may be regarded either as the finishing year of the 
elementary school or as the introductory year of 
the high school or secondary course of study, but 
which, however regarded, is the most critical year in 
the life of the young person and the one to which it 
is of the utmost importance that his education should 
be properly adapted. 

The work of this transition department is planned 
for a single year, not from any such theoretical con- 
sideration as the supposition that a twelvemonth (or 



THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 71 

more accurately, nine months), best measures the 
time during which the young person may properly be 
regarded as pubescent rather than adolescent, but be- 
cause of practical considerations. It is probably true 
that the intensity of the desire to get a birdseye view 
of things, to comprehend, to understand things, to see 
things in their larger general relations, rather than 
to manipulate things, is even stronger as adolescence 
advances than at the moment of its conception; yet 
it is especially to answer this need, which the mind 
of the young person passing from boyhood into youth 
feels, that the curriculum of the secondary transi- 
tion department is adapted. The important practical 
considerations that point to a year as the normal 
length for the secondary transition curriculum, are 
that the law, in accordance with the wishes of a great 
part of our population, generally permits parents to 
take their children out of school and set them at work 
at fourteen years of age, and that, as regards a very 
large part of our population, both children and pa- 
rents are eager to avail themselves of the privilege of 
finishing the child's school life at this time. The 
completion of the Secondary Transition Department 
course, if only a year long, might be made the con- 
dition of granting a license to work.* 



* At the time this study was planned few American school 
authorities would make room at all for what I have called a 
Secondary Transition department and what some cities (as Los 
Angeles) call an Intermediate school and others (as Worcester) 
call a Preparatory school. At the time this essay on the Organi- 
zation of Education took its final form I had succeeded with 
difficulty in getting a modification of my Secondary Transition 
department substituted for the usual first year of high school 
in a western city, and later pushed down into the "grammar 



72 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 

As regards the young person himself, it is probably- 
true that the restiveness under the school life that so 
generally shows itself at this age, the impatience of 
the school routine and school discipline and the eager- 
ness to get out of school and go to work or even re- 
main at home and help in the work of the household, 
is largely the result of a badly constructed course of 
study and faulty methods, which fail to recognize the 
important difference between boyhood and girlhood 
proper, on the one hand, and pubescence on the other, 
and fatuously endeavor to feed the expanding mind 
of the pubescent with a mental pabulum that has 
been primarily designed for younger children and 
that is generally too one-sided and scholastic even to 
be quite palatable for the more pliant and less self- 
assertive and independent age of boyhood and girl- 
hood proper. Were the school curriculum more wisely 
planned, it is unquestionable that many more chil- 
dren would be desirous of continuing their education 
beyond the elementary school; yet we should not 
shut our eyes to the fact that the evolution of a great 
part of our composite population has not carried them 
far enough along to make the higher education de- 
sirable or even possible for them. A condition, not 
a theory, confronts us in America, as elsewhere, to- 
day ; and that condition is that for thousands of our 

schoor' period of school life. I was influenced by such practical 
considerations as these to treat this transition department as a 
short course to be substituted for the usual eighth grade. At 
the present time I rejoice to know that the conservative pres- 
entation I have given to the subject is no longer necessary, 
and that a number of progressive cities (including my present 
home, Los Angeles) have adopted a three-year transition de- 
partment beginning as low as the seventh grade. 



THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 73 

jonng people tlie advent of adolescence marks the 
period at wliich (exclusive) school life and theoretical 
education should end, simply because they are intel- 
lectually unfit for farther systematic advance along 
any but the most practical lines. 

The year's curriculum for the secondary transition 
department is designed to meet the needs of that large 
number whose school life, by reason either of material 
or of intellectual poverty must end at the beginning 
of adolescence; and at the same time to be no less 
serviceable to those more fortunate young persons who 
are to continue their systematic education through- 
out a large part of the adolescent period. This two- 
fold purpose is to be accomplished by giving to all 
young people at the advent of adolescence a sum- 
mary and conspectus of the fundamental facts of 
science, history, and economics, — that is to say, what 
man has learned about the world of which he is a 
part and what mankind has accomplished for social 
welfare, — and by giving them at the same time a 
taste of literature, a little training in some practical 
or fine art, an opportunity for a year's consecutive 
work in a self-chosen line of study or practice, and 
throughout the year the most careful physical train- 
ing. This will help those whose school life is to end 
at this point, to go to work with such an intelligent 
outlook upon their physical and social environment 
as must be of advantage to them, both materially and 
spiritually, in the struggle of life; while those who 
are to continue their education in the school for ado- 
lescents will thus be provided with a rough chart of 



74 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

the scope and extent of human art and science, which 
will enable them to elect their future studies with the 
greater intelligence; and even should they specialize 
quite narrowly in their future studies they will be 
protected by this birdseye view of the breadth and 
extent of human interests and this brief summary of 
human achievements, from that narrow ignorance of 
and indifference to whatever lies outside one's own 
field of study and effort which today so often charac- 
terizes the highly trained specialist in science, art 
and literature. 

What I have suggested and now purpose to outline 
with somewhat more of detail, may seem at first 
glance to constitute a pretty heavy program for a 
single year; but in reality the course is light, rather 
than heavy, for only the elective course and the course 
in literature require any outside preparation. As 
to these two courses it may be added that, should the 
elective course be one in some line of manual training, 
there would be little or no work in it outside of school 
hours, and in the literature course, while outside 
reading is to be encouraged, only a minimum of such 
reading and little or no outside writing is to be re- 
quired from any one who does not enjoy the work 
enough to be personally desirous of doing the read- 
ing and reporting thereon for his own pleasure and 
entertainment. Physical culture is really to be cen- 
tral this year, and all the work should be subject to 
a competent physician's judgment as to the pupil's 
fitness for it. While it might sometimes happen 



THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 75 

that an exceptionally delicate and nervous young 
person could not take the whole curriculum in a 
single year, yet the curriculum is deliberately 
planned so that, in case the great physical changes 
and the rapid and unsymmetrical growth that char- 
acterize pubescence should unfit for much systematic 
intellectual or physical work, a minimum of effort 
and yet a maximum of inspiring and entertaining 
occupation will be at hand.* 

B. The Curriculum for the Secondary Transi- 
tion Department should consist of: — 
1. Required Courses: 

a. Science. A course designed to give a general 
notion of the fundamental truths of nature thus far 
established or regarded as highly probable by the 
students of natural science. 

This should be, in the main, a lecture and demon- 
stration course; there should be no required home 
work, no formal recitations ; and, from the nature of 
the course and its wide scope, there could be little 
opportunity for individual laboratory experimenta- 
tion on the part of the pupils; but the instructor 
might with advantage spend the first part of each 
period enlisting the pupils' assistance in reviewing 
the progress so far made in the course, thus testing 

.r.^3^*? the omission of the physical culture (for which the 
no^rovl5on?'"tf;' ^""^ insufficient appropriations made (Slas!) 
no provision) the course herein outlined for the Seconds rv 
Transition De^partment, was given substantSly in the ninth 
durfnVthr^fn,^''''*^''^ ^^.f^^l.*^^ ^'^^-^ «^hool at Lincoln (Neb ), 
fnstU?tion ^ ^ ^"^^'''' ^^^ '"^ ^^^^^^ ^^ that 



76 THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 

their understanding of what he had endeavored to 
make clear to them, and taking this opportunity to 
ehicidate the matter still further where that should 
appear to be necessary. 

The subjects following should be embraced in this 
summary of contemporary science: physics, say the 
first month, carried far enough to make it possible 
to take up chemistry intelligently the second month. 
After physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, phys- 
ical geography and meteorology j then biology (first 
botany, then zoology), which should be completed 
by the presentation of the elements of human phyi- 
ology and hygiene. The course in biology should 
acquaint the pupils with the general structure, life 
history and habits of typical living beings, vegetable 
and animal, from the lowest to the highest, and 
should point out the correspondences found in the 
embryonic development of different species and the 
resemblance to lower adult forms seen in the early 
stages of embryonic and extra-uterine development 
of higher species. This introduction to biology, and 
especially the attention given to the structure and 
functions of human brings, should make evident 
that thought, as' well as emotion and sensation, is a 
part of the life activity of the higher animals, and 
shouM thus lay a foundation for the presentation 
(in the last month of the school year) of the simplest 
elements of psychology. This should consist in 
showing, first, that there is a correspondence between 
the emotion and thought of man and animals, on the 



THE EEOEGANIZATION^ OF OUR SCHOOLS 77 

one hand, and the activity of their nerves and brains 
on the other ; that bodily actions and habits of action 
affect our thought and feeling, and that our thought 
and feeling also affect our body; and hence, inci- 
dentally, that the formation of good, wholesome 
habits is of the utmost importance for us: secondly, 
that it is easy to err by misinterpreting our sensa- 
tions of sight, hearing, touch, etc., any one of which 
may mislead us if not compared with our other sen- 
sations — ^thus making evident that sanity and wis- 
dom are dependent upon the correlation and com- 
parison of all our source^ of knowledge and the ac- 
ceptance as true of that alone which is consistent 
with all our means of judging of reality. Finally, 
the pupils' attention should be brought to the fact 
that all that we know (whether our knowledge relates 
to "science" or to "history," as some philosophers 
contrast those concepts), the whole of each man's 
or boy's knowledge of the universe, is only what he 
himself feels and thinks, — either what he is directly 
conscious of in his sensations, emotions, and thoughts, 
or what he is indirectly conscious of by hearing and 
reading what others say as to what other people have 
seen, heard, tasted, smelt, felt, thought, or, in a word, 
been conscious of. In this way the young people 
may be led to appreciate the fundamental distinction 
between the objective consideration of the things 
with which man concerns himself — the considera- 
tion of them as parts of a great universe of reality 
of which he himself is but a small part (this being 



78 THE EEORGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 

the way in which the boy or girl has previously been 
in the habit of considering everything) — and the 
subjective consideration of everything as a part of 
the consciousness of him who is feeling these things 
or thinking about them. I feel confident that a 
competent instructor, by properly leading up to the 
subject, can present even this crucial distinction of 
psychology to normally intelligent young people 
standing at the threshold of adolescence; but, 
whether or not the pubescent can thus be led to pierce 
to the heart of psychology, all the rest that I have 
treated under this heading can and should be pre- 
sented to the pubescent in a few simple talks illus- 
trated by interesting but simple experiments. 

As introductory to each division of natural sci- 
ence treated of in this year's work, or at the conclu- 
sion of the presentation of the special science in 
question, or else, less desirably, at the end of the 
whole year's work, during the last fortnight of the 
school year, a few hours should be devoted to a brief 
sketch of the progress of the science, calling atten- 
tion to the biographies of some of those whose names 
have been most closely associated with these con- 
quests of nature. 

These courses should be somewhat similar to the 
better and more systematic popular science courses 
offered to unlearned adults. Throughout, the hy- 
pothetical character of scientific theories should not 
be blinked, but the test of legitimacy in theory 
should be insisted upon, — to wit, consistency with all 



THE EEOEGANIZATIOIS" OF OUE SCHOOLS 79 

observed facts, and ^Workability", or effectiveness in 
rendering the universe comprehensible. Text or guide 
books of the several subjects, physics, chemistry, phys- 
iology, etc., might be put into the hands of the pupils 
as the several subjects are taken up (provided suit- 
able books can be found), to help the student to a 
fuller insight into the subject, if inclined to further 
study; the pupils should be encouraged to keep note 
books, and should be referred to the best books avail- 
able to give them a larger knowledge of the subject; 
a syllabus of the instructor's course might be put 
into the pupils' hands, if nothing else were; but in 
all cases the use of these aids should he left optional 
with the pupil, his attendance at the lectures, or 
talJcs, and participation in the class discussion being 
all that should be required of him. 

While every effort should be made to interest the 
young people, while the subject should be so pre- 
sented as to give to reasonably attentive pupils a fair 
knowledge of the most far-reaching results of the 
science in question, and while the information-con- 
tent of the instruction should be as large as the 
limited time and, on the part of the pupil, the limited 
experience, the immaturity and the ignorance of 
auxiliary subjects would make possible, yet care 
should be taken throughout to whet, rather than to 
sate, the interest and intellectual appetite of the 
young people; interesting vistas not followed out 
should be opened from time to time, and every ef- 
fort made to show to these young people at this im- 



80 THE REORGANIZATIOIS' OF OUE SCHOOLS 

pressionable age how vast and interesting are tlie 
fields of science, of which they are given a birdseye 
view. When possible, occasional popular lectures by 
distinguished specialists may be made a part of the 
year's program. 

The means by which the knowledge presented has 
been reached, should be indicated, and the satisfac- 
tion of being able to discover such things for one's 
self strongly suggested. The necessity for a consid- 
erable knowledge of mathematics for any extended, 
first-hand knowledge of physics, astronomy, etc, 
should be made very clear ; and the like necessity for 
this mathematical knowledge in order to apply the 
laws of physics to the practical problems of life, as 
met by the mechanician and the engineer, should be 
driven home. In short, while a sincere effort should 
be made throughout the work of this year to give to 
the young person a fairly systematic and comprehen- 
sive idea of the true nature of the world he lives in, 
of the operation of the forces that affect his life and 
welfare, and of his own nature, he should through- 
out be impressed by the vastness of it all and should 
be made wise by becoming conscious of the extent of 
his ignorance, so that the desire for larger, deeper, 
first-hand knowledge may be aroused. In summing 
up the history of the development of each of the 
several sciences, advantage should be taken of the 
opportunity to call attention to the most pressing 
problems still awaiting solution, and to indicate the 
points at which the students of the science in ques- 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 81 

tion feel their ignorance most keenly. In a word, 
the young people should be made to understand clear- 
ly that at the end of this year they have but reached 
the threshold of the world of science. 

b. A course in the History of human develop- 
ment, preceded by such a picture of primitive man 
as anthropology suggests to us, and picturing savage 
and barbarous life before passing to the historic na- 
tions; giving the probable reasons for the early 
development of a fairly high civilization in the great 
sub-tropic river valleys of Africa and Asia minor; 
and then proceeding to show how the present eco- 
nomic, political and religious institutions of the 
United States are indebted to those early civiliza- 
tions ; showing how the torch of civilization has been 
passed on from one people to another, variously mod- 
ified in the transition, until today the descendants 
of the barbarous hordes that inhabited central Europe 
in the first century of the Christian era have achieved 
in Europe, America and Australasia, the highest 
civilization the world has yet attained ; showing that 
the art of each people and each period reflects, as it 
is the expression of, the feeling of (the dominant 
element of) the people of that time, and that progress 
in science is progress in the (intellectual) interpreta- 
tion of the habits of the universe, or, as we usually 
say, of the laws of nature ; showing then how art and 
science have reacted on the moral ideas of people and 
changed their political and religious usages as well as 
their industrial system. At the conclusion of the 



82 THE REOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 

course there should be an attempt to sum up the re- 
sults of the moral insight gained by us at the end of 
these centuries of progressive civilization, so that a 
high and yet a sane and serviceable ideal of the true, 
the good and the beautiful may uplift the hearts of 
the young people. The meaning and importance of 
the social sciences — of economics, political sciences, 
ethics, esthetics and philosophy — should be indicated 
at least. 

This course should be given by lectures and auxil- 
iary conversations; or rather, throughout by talks. 
Good books of reference, as well as charts and maps, 
should be at hand and should be referred to by the 
teacher, and pupils should be encouraged to make 
use of them. As regards books to be read in connec- 
tion V7ith the course, such v^orks as West's Ancient 
World and Davis's or Webster's Headings in Ancient 
History would probably be more attractive and use- 
ful than such a brief compendium as Myers's Gen- 
eral History, on the one hand, or very elaborate 
special studies, on the other. Mrs. Sheldon-Barnes's 
General History is full of valuable suggestions for 
one conducting such a course as is here proposed. 
Historical novels should be recommended to make the 
course vivid ; and if it should be necessary, as a means 
of interesting the pupils in them, a few hours in the 
year might be devoted to readings by the instructor 
from the best passages of some of these novels. At- 
tention should be directed to the literary monuments, 
and good translations of these should be at hand. 



THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 83 

There should be occasional readings from such writ- 
ers as Homer, Thucydides, Livy, Commines, Frois- 
sart, from Fenelon's Telemache, from Chaucer, 
Swift, Bunyan, and the ballad literature, as well as 
from the less literary remains of an earlier day, 
such as the monkish chronicles (and the early writ- 
ings of Egypt and Babylonia-Assyria should be sim- 
ilarly used) . The poems and romances of early times 
should be given some attention. Marco Polo and Sir 
John Mandeville might be compared with Munchau- 
sen on the one hand, and with Livingston and Stan- 
ley on the other. 

The course should be so arranged that the ground 
could be covered in four days a week, leaving every 
fifth day for exercises of an auxiliary character, — 
readings and discussions, perhaps debates on histori- 
cal questions, plays, recitations, etc. But in the dis- 
cussions and debates care should be taken that the 
standards of today be not unfairly applied to a diff- 
erent stage of culture, with different conditions, pos- 
sibilities and needs. Debate should be used, not to 
intensify prejudice against this or that people, per- 
son or line of conduct, but rather to awaken sympa- 
thy with different phases of life and with unaccus- 
tomed points of view. Pupils should be encouraged 
in a friendly rivalry to see who could bring to the 
class from the library the most interesting illustra- 
tive matter ; they might hand in to the teacher a brief 
statement of what they had found, bearing on the 
history of the people or period then under discussion ; 



84 THE REORGANIZATIOIS^ OF OUR SCHOOLS 

and the best of these (or occasionally those which 
showed the most effort) might be presented to the 
class. Excursions, visits to museums and monu- 
mentSj etc., would also occasionally have their place, 
so far as these would not interfere with the work in 
the other departments of study pursued by the pupils. 
But all the outside reading, preparation for discus- 
sion, etc, should be optional. 

c. A course in Literature and esthetics, which in 
most schools would necessarily be almost exclusively 
a course in literature. 

One hour a week might be given to grammar, com- 
position and elocutionary training, and in connection 
with this work the a-b-c of comparative philology 
might possibly be presented to the class ; and one 
hour each week might be devoted to the most interest- 
ing literary and artistic creations of the world in 
chronological order, thus making a valuable contri- 
bution to the study of history while giving the young 
people a glimpse of the great world classics ; but the 
greater part of the time — say, three hours a week — 
should be devoted to a flexible course in the literature 
that would be most attractive and most beneficial to 
early youth and most likely to give the young people 
a love for reading. At the beginning of the course 
the pupils should be asked to tell (either orally or 
in writing) what they have read that they have most 
enjoyed. At the end of the first week let them write 
out a statement of all the works they have read that 
they can remember, tell why they like this that they 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 85 

have read and do not care for that, and state what 
kind of reading they generally prefer. This should 
be done in class unless the pupil prefers to do it 
more elaborately outside of school hours. These 
statements should be carefully studied by the instruc- 
tor, who should work from them in preparing future 
work for the class and in giiiding the individual 
reading of the pupils. , The pupils should under- 
stand that these written statements are prepared by 
them so that the instructor may remember what they 
tell him or her as to their previous reading and pres- 
ent preferences ; here, as everywhere, the pupil should 
think of his work, not as a formal composition, but as 
something having an immediate purpose. The oral 
and written statements of the pupil, the first month or 
so, should hardly ever be criticised from the stand- 
point of form (unless an individual pupil is especially 
desirous of getting such criticism), if they can be un- 
derstood ; barring such cases as those in which a kind- 
ly explanatory correction by the instructor would 
check a laugh on the part of the blunderer's fellow 
pupils. Everything possible should be done to make 
this course a thoroughly enjoyable one for the young 
people. Working in the light of the data obtained 
from the pupils' statements the first week of the 
school year, reading lists should be carefully pre- 
pared, and some notion of the contents of these lists 
at once given to the pupils, partly by the explana- 
tory commentary of the instructor and partly by 
turning the young people into the library to thumb 



86 THE KEOKGANIZATION" OF OUR SCHOOLS 

the book themselves. Each pupil should be required 
to read a few of these books and poems, but the se- 
lection should be largely his own. 'Not intense, 
analytic study, but enjoyment of literature should be 
cultivated. At this stage of growth there is strong 
reason to believe that a love for reading will be better 
cultivated by a wide, than by a thorough, knowledge 
of books. The library should be large and have 
much variety, and there should be many copies of the 
books most likely to make a general appeal to early 
adolescence. The pupils should be read to, and en- 
couraged to bring to the class the best that they have 
severally read — that is, the things that appeal most to 
them. The more different the reading of the individ- 
ual pupils, the more interesting this exercise might 
be made and the better the opportunity to cultivate 
expressive reading aloud on the part of the pupils. 
Of course if A is especially interested in B's account 
of what he has read or in his extract therefrom, A 
will be likely to get a copy of the book for his own 
home reading. A part of the reading should be in 
common, selected with prayer and trembling by the 
instructor to appeal to the largest number and yet 
enlarge and uplift their minds. Such of the ac- 
knowledged classics as can be used with satisfaction 
to the pupils should be made use of; but a classic 
should not be forced upon them merely because the 
judgment of adults has declared it to be a classic. In 
the last third of the year I think it will be found that 
the work read in common can safely be chosen for its 



THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 87 

beauty and strength (as cultivated adults judge such 
matters), and that almost all of the pupils will enjoy 
it. Biography will have its place in the literature 
read by the youth of this department of the school. 
The Bible should afford a part of the field for selec- 
tion. I would suggest that beautiful selections there- 
from be presented to the pupils without expressly 
stating to them the source of the selections. When 
the pupils show a sincere appreciation of the excel- 
lence of these selections, the book and chapter from 
which the selection was taken may be stated to the 
pupils. It should never he forgotten that the great 
function of literature is, not to improve the style or 
the taste of those who peruse it, but to enlarge the 
self by a knowledge of and sympathy with the life 
and thought and feeling of those differently circum- 
stanced from ourselves yet sharing with us the funda- 
mental traits of human nature. As regards the 
choice of literature for this stage of school life, it 
may be added that the instructor need not fear to 
introduce a little of that which makes the greatest 
appeal to himself, of that which he himself enjoys 
most, inasmmuch as his own enthusiasm may general- 
ly be depended upon to awaken some response on the 
part of the pupils ; but in the main what is to be read 
must be determined by the preference of the pupil, 
and the point of departure should be the best of what 
the pupil already enjoys, or, at farthest, something 
really good that yet has kinship with or likeness to 
the pernicious reading matter for which the pupil 



88 THE REOEGANIZATION" OF OUE SCHOOLS 

may unfortunately have acquired a taste. Those of 
the pupils who take to reading should be encouraged 
to read much, reporting title and author, and making 
oral — and occasional written — reports of the plot and 
of the charm, as it appeals to them, of the works they 
read. Should two readers of the same work express 
opposite opinions, let them sometimes try in oral 
debate to convince the class of the validity of their 
I'espective judgments.* This sort of thing may lead 
to written persuasive discourse later. 

As the year passes the instructor may be more and 
more critical of the oral and written language of the 
pupils, bringing them to feel its defects in compari- 
son with the beauty and perfection of what they read, 
and thus awakening their esthetic feeling in regard 
to their own utterances, yet always making clearness 
the chief consideration and leaving elegance and forc- 
ibleness in the secondary position, being assured that 
the growing esthetic judgment of youth will in time 
care for these things. 

If a pupil is markedly disinclined toward reading, 
a minimum of outside reading should be assigned to 
him — say, from one to three books or selections in 
the course of the year — but redoubled effort should 
be made to learn his tastes and to get something for 
him that will appeal to him. With some young 
people one may have to begin with what is not prop- 
erly literature at all, but perhaps descriptions of 



* This seems to me to be much more wholesome than the usual 
school debating upon questions as to which an artificial enthu- 
siasm for one side or the other is worked up. 



THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 89 

physical and meclianical constructions, in which a 
certain class of practical minds seem greatly inter- 
ested. Perhaps the minds of some can be cultivated 
and enlarged by architecture, where literature seems 
to fail ; but in such cases such literature as Ruskin's 
may later be enjoyed, and thus the door opened into 
the realm of true literature. 

While throughout the year as much as one hour 
a week might well be devoted to the work common 
to the whole class, the greater part of the work 
should be adapted to the individual needs and tastes 
of the pupil. 

So far as possible pictorial and plastic art should 
be used to reinforce the esthetic impression produced 
by literature, and it would be well indeed if there 
could also be, as part of the year's work in literature 
and esthetics, a series of music recitals with simple 
explanatory introductions. 

The work in literature and esthetics must be main- 
ly literature, not merely because it constitutes a 
broader avenue of culture, and because those who 
leave school at the end of this year can most readily 
follow up this line of culture, but also because it is 
easier and less expensive to get literature properly 
taught in the average community than it is to have 
other departments of esthetic culture properly pre- 
sented; but music, painting, sculpture and architec- 
ture may all play their part in the great city high 
schools, and the secondary transition departments 
should have the same facilities as the high school 
proper, or school for adolescents. 



90 THE KEOEGAlSriZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

It goes without saying that while it may be possi- 
ble for large classes in science and history to be met 
by single instructors in the secondary transition de- 
partment, the class in literature, if large, should be 
divided into small sections; yet if the divisions are 
not formed until the first fortnight has elapsed, the 
tastes, acquirements and dispositions of the pupils 
may be so far taken account of as to group together 
fairly large sections in which there will be consider- 
able homogeneity. Too great likeness among the 
pupils of a given section is of course undesirable. 

d. A Course in Physical Culture. 

This should be alloted a period a day, or three 
periods a week at least, should be directed by a 
thoroughly competent physical director, and should 
])e individually adapted to the several needs of the 
different pupils, although as far as possible there 
should be work in which all the boys could take 
part together (and similarly for the girls). Part of 
this training might be by means, of games; but the 
great purpose of physical development for all should 
not be subordinated to grouping the boys for those 
games for which at the outset they might be respec- 
tively best fitted. The great endeavor should be to 
get the young people started in good physical habits 
of life and to build up for them strong and healthy 
bodies, trained to a ready and effective response to 
the will. 

e. A Course in Free-Hand Drawing, Music or 
some other kind of Art-Worh to be pursued at least 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 91 

twice a week, if an art course is not tahen as the 
elective. 

2. Elective Course. 

One exercise a day or at least four a week should 
be devoted to a subject chosen by the pupil himself 
in consultation with his parents. To this subject he 
should devote himself earnestly, giving as much time 
to it, in school or out, as the nature of the subject 
might demand. This subject might be a foreign lan- 
guage, or mathematics, or some such branch of fine 
art as music or painting, or some practical art or 
gTOup of arts such as commercial arithmetic, book- 
keeping, typewriting, shorthand, or two or more of 
these, cooking, sewing, turning, carpentry, iron work, 
etc. 

3. Optional Course. 

An optional elective might be added to the required 
one, to be pursued in school or out, by such students 
as might have exceptional strength and robust health. 
C. A Program for this year's work might be ar- 
ranged as follows: — 
8.30 — 9.00 Morning Exercises. 
9.00 — 9.45 Science Course. 
9.50 — 11.10 Elective Course. 
11.15 — 12.00 History Course. 
2.00 — 2.45 Literature & Esthetics Course. 
2.50 — 4.00 Systematic Physical Culture, 3 times a 
week. 

Art (Drawing, Painting or Music), 
etc. 2 times a week. 



92 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

This program allows two hours intermission in the 
middle of the day, and then makes the school day 
(including the last hour for physical culture) last 
until about four o'clock. It will be noticed, how- 
ever, that nearly an hour and a half is provided for 
the elective subject so that there would be little need 
for much home work in the subject, and no need for 
it in any of the other subjects, except the outside 
reading in the literature course (most of which would 
be optional). In winter, when the days are short, 
the middle of the day, thus left free, is the most de- 
sirable time for freedom to be out of doors, and in the 
early fall there would be plenty of daylight after 
four. The plan provides that practically all the work 
be done in school, except an indefinite amount of 
reading for the evening, which would provide an in- 
teresting and enjoyable way of spending the evening 
leisure. When the absence of home preparation is 
considered, it will be seen that the school day should 
not be regarded as a long one ; especially when the 
long noon recess, the long period for physical culture 
(only a part of which would be given to prescribed 
physical drill), and the intermission periods are 
considered. One reason for concentrating the work 
at the school is that the high grade of qualification 
required of those giving the instruction, in the synop- 
tic courses in science and history especially, would 
make it improbable that small villages could provide 
the instruction. This would tend toward the estab- 
lishment of these secondary transition schools only in 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 



93 



the larger towns, to wliicli the youth might come 
from outlying districts miles away. In such cases 
they should be kept occupied while in school, their 
school work should take five or six hours a day, but 
they should not have it to attend to when at home, 
except for an hour or so in the evening, after the 
chores, the home duties, were disposed of. 

In industrial cities and wherever the demand for 
them exists, the courses offered in the secondary tran- 
sition department should also be given in the evening. 

Section 5. The High School, Secondary De- 
partment, OR School eor Adolescents. 

A. General View. When the high school, or 
school for adolescents, has been reached, the work 
should be arranged according to the annual, semi- 
annual or quarterly classes or terms, that are now 
usual throughout the whole school period. The ad- 
vancement of the student in each subject should be 
independent of his success or failure in other studies, 
and the one test of promotion should be ability to 
get greater benefit in the advanced class than he 
could get from remaining in the lower class. In 
order that the youth may get the greatest advantage 
from so much schooling as he may be able to get, 
wherever he may stop, and may have the widest pos- 
sible field of study and activity before him at all 
times, there must be both system and elasticity ; and 
after the first year of the high school it should be 



94 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

possible for him either to devote himself primarily to 
the acquisition of the necessary means for the broad- 
est and most thorough culture — in which case his 
curriculum might correspond in large measure to the 
college preparatory courses in a few of the best acad- 
emies, high schools and fitting schools of today — or to 
devote himself primarily to some one of the practical 
arts of life — in which case his curriculum might be 
similar to some one of the courses of study given in 
technological, commercial, manual training, or even 
in one of the best trade schools. The extent to which 
elective courses should be offered by any given high 
school would of course depend upon the wealth and 
size of the community to which it might minister 
and by which it might be supported and upon local 
conditions generally, such as the predominant indus- 
tries and the habits of life and the nativity of the 
principal elements in the population. 

The completion of the work of the secondary 
transition department or its approximate equivalent 
in scope of work should be a prerequisite for admis- 
sion to the high school proper. 

B. The FIRST YEARNS work in the school for ado- 
lescents should consist of — 

1. English for three periods a week. At least 
one period a week should be devoted to composition. 
In addition to this there should be some study of 
literary masterpieces. 

2. History for two or three periods a week. The 



THE KEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 95 

work in history should consist of a careful study of 
some one period or institution, according to scientific 
method, so that the students might not only learn 
much of some one topic in history, but might also 
gain a general acquaintance with the sources of^ his- 
torical knowledge and the methods of historical re- 
search, and thus be liberated, on the one hand, from 
the credulity that accepts anything that is recorded 
in print or handed down by tradition and, on the 
•other, from the injudicious, unenlightened, ^ 'cheap" 
skepticism that condemns all history and tradition as 
wholly unreliable and characterizes it as a lying 
farrago of imagination and superstition. For this 
purpose and with a special view to the benefit of those 
who would never have any further formal study of 
history, a selection from the field of English or 
Grecian history might be found most advisable, but 
the selection should depend chiefly, I am inclined to 
think, upon that in which the teacher is best 
equipped, whether it be the reconstruction period of 
American history or the age of Assurbanipal. In a 
large school where considerable work in history can 
be offered, the student might choose his subject in 
history, but his choice should be enlightened by the 
advice of the school officers. Whenever a single period 
or institution is taken up for study, the teacher should 
not fail to devote one or more lectures to setting forth 
the relation of the special topic to the general course 
of human development. 

3. A laboratory study in some one science pur- 



96 THE KEORGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 

sued for four or five periods a week. This laboratory 
work should be supplemented by the presentation of 
a general outline of the science of which it should be 
a part. What laboratory science should be thus stud- 
ied would depend, first, upon the resources of the 
school, and, secondly, upon the practical or scholastic 
career which the student expected to pursue. 

4 and 5. Physical Culture (three times a week) 
and A7^i (twice a week). The physical culture 
should be adapted to the special needs of the individ- 
ual, ascertained by a careful examination made by a 
competent physical director. The art might take the 
form of drawing, painting, modeling, carving, music, 
or any other art which the taste and aptitude and 
life purpose of the youth and the resources of the 
school might render possible; or the student might 
comply with this requirement by the private pursuit 
of some artistic line of endeavor not provided by 
the school. 

6. Elective work to an amount not less than four 
nor more than ten hours a week, in the case of a 
normal youth, should complete the work of the first 
year of the adolescent department. In the case of a 
student looking forward to a technological, profes- 
sional or university career, and generally in the case 
of all not compelled by economic necessity to devote 
these elective hours to special preparation for an im- 
mediate calling, by the study of bookkeeping, type- 
writing, carpentry or some other commercial or tech- 
nical subject, the first elective study should be math- 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 97 

ematics (four periods a week) and the next should 
normally be a foreign language,"^ 

Inasmuch as the student would presumably have 
studied one modern language throughout the four 
years or so of the intermediate or elementary depart- 
ment (the "school for boyhood and girlhood proper''), 
and would thus have acquired a considerable degree 
of proficiency in it, I think that the student desiring 
a broad culture should be advised to make Latin the 
language choice of this year (devoting four periods a 
week to it and perhaps one to the continuation of the 
modern language he has studied in the elementary 
school). I recommend Latin, not because of its lit- 
erary value, which seems to me markedly inferior to 
Greek and to the modern languages of the leading 
culture nations of our own day, nor because it is nec- 
cessary for the acquirement of a notion of classical 
culture (which can be acquired in other ways, and in 
respect to which I would observe that the earnest 
student of history, literature and art whose studies 
are carried on through the medium of his vernacular, 
may be greatly the superior of the man who has 
studied Latin and Greek six or more years), nor yet 
because of Latin's supposed peculiar fitness to impart 
mental discipline (in which respect I fail to see any 
marked superiority over German), but because this 



• It would be difficult to overestimate the cultural value of the 
study of the language and literature of one or more foreign 
peoples, In enabling one to look at life from a somewhat differ- 
ent emotional and intellectual standpoint from that of our own 
(Anglo-Saxon) civilization — its value, that is. In giving one a 
method of triangulation that will enable him to estimate more 
truly the magnitude and the meaning of life. 



98 THE EEOEGAiq^IZATIO]^ OF OUE SCHOOLS 

language is at present a necessary tool for original 
research into the history of almost every institution 
of civilization and of every art and science that is not 
of very recent birth, and because as the source of a 
great percentage of English v^ords and as a language 
from which words and phrases are much quoted in the 
literature of our own and of all other modem lan- 
guages, and as the basis of many important modern 
languages, including French, Italian and Spanish, 
and finally as a highly inflected language the gram- 
mar of which has been very carefully worked out and 
the structure of which is continually used for the 
illustration of philological and linguistic studies — it 
has a great many practical claims upon the present- 
day scholar, and its total neglect would seriously 
limit his efficiency as a student and investigator and 
the fulness of his enjoyment as a man of culture. 
Once taken up, I think the study of Latin should 
preferably be pursued for three or four years (at 
least four periods a week) , taking up Virgil the last 
half of the third year. I do not think a longer period 
than three years necessary for one who does not in- 
tend to devote himself especially to classical literature 
or to philology, and I believe that shorter period of 
study — two years, or even one year, would not be 
without value. 

Whenever a second language is taken up, it would 
be well to give not more than four periods a week to 
it, so as to leave one period a week for the continu- 
ance of the foreign language previously studied, if 



THE EEOEGANIZATIOI^ OF OUR SCHOOLS 99 

the latter would otherwise be discontinued. We need 
in America to get away from the mechanical notion 
that all school studies should be taken five times 
a week. 

During the first year of the school for adolescents, 
at least, provision should be made for study under 
the direct supervision of the teacher, either by means 
of "double periods" (the students spending part of 
the period in a class exercise and the other part in 
preparation for the next day's class exercise under 
the eye of the teacher, thus giving the latter an oppor- 
tunity to help individually those who need to learn 
how to study or who have special difficulty with the 
assigned task) or by means of a special hour with 
the teacher, to be assigned for those students who do 
not seem to prepare properly for the class exercise. 

C. After This First Year of the school for ad- 
olescents all hut from six to ten hours, for physical 
culture, art and English, might he elective; election 
of course, being subject to the fact that a certain 
order of studies is prescribed by common sense and 
ordinary convenience when it has once been deter- 
mined that given studies are to be pursued, and sub- 
ject to the further fact that any intelligent education 
would naturally take the form of group electives 
rather than miscellaneous individual elections. 
Toward the end of the secondary course, however, all 
students should have a term's work in psychology, in 
political and economic science, and in the history of 
philosophy, if not a philosophic review of the history 



100 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

of civilization. Although the study of English 
should be pursued throughout the high school course, 
the time formally devoted to it might in the later 
years be limited to one period a week. In addition, 
however, to the special study of English literature, 
all the work of the high school, or school for adoles- 
cents, should contribute to the study of English, and 
all written work of the student, in whatever depart- 
ment of study, should be carefully examined and per- 
sistently (but not hyper critically) criticised from the 
standpoint of straightforward, simple and forcible 
English. It would be well to have English teachers 
whose class work would be light enough to enable 
them to devote a large part of their time to the exami- 
nation and criticism of the oral and written work 
of the students in classes other than English. Oral 
discourse, narrative, descriptive, expository and ar- 
gumentative, and oral reading, as well as written 
composition and the appreciation of literature, should 
be carefully cultivated. The work in history and in 
foreign languages especially, should be made to con- 
tribute to a mastery of English expression. 

'No electives should be chosen until after con- 
sultation with the pupiFs special adviser upon the 
faculty, and with the principal, who would naturally 
learn something of the student's bent and ability from 
the teachers under whom he had previously worked, 
and who, if fit for his important position, should have 
a breadth of view sufiicient to enable him to counsel 
wisely in view of all the conditions confronting the 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 101 

youtli. This advice, indeed, should be no mere tri- 
fling incident of the principal's position, but should 
be recognized as one of his most important functions 
and one for which he should prepare himself by a 
careful study of the conditions of life and the indi- 
vidual strength and weakness of his pupils. 

In a large school for adolescents, in a rich and 
populous community, it should be perfectly feasible 
for a student to pursue the so-called cultural and vo- 
cational studies side by side for an indefinite num- 
ber of years. By arranging both morning and after- 
noon sessions so that two youths might work their way 
through school by being employed in the same indus- 
trial establishment, the one working in the morning 
and the other in the afternoon, attending their school 
classes in the reverse order, school managers could 
in an industrial community make it possible for 
every youth to get the full benefit of all the education- 
al facilities given by the school, however long and 
elaborate the courses, without cost to the parent ; for I 
have the assurance of competent and experienced 
employers of labor that the average youth of sixteen 
can easily support himself by five hours labor a day 
at work which can readily be learned in a few weeks. 
In the larger cities the high school might well melt 
into and coalesce with the polytechnic institute and 
the college, and it should fit its pupils to enter at 
once upon professional or true university studies 
without the intervention of any college baccalaureate 
course. Our present system of four years of high 



102 THE EEOEGANIZATIOI^ OF OUR SCHOOLS 

school followed by four college years as preliminary 
to professional or advanced university courses is 
merely an accident of history, is not logical, not nec- 
essary, not even desirable, and is rapidly coming to 
be recognized as an anachronism. The broad foun- 
dation of general culture should be laid in the en- 
larged secondary school, or school for adolescents, so 
as to leave the student free to specialize as closely as 
he may desire to do upon passing to the university or 
professional school. 

The "Junior College" movement is a wholesome 
step in the right direction ; but instead of regarding 
the junior college as constituted by a definite two 
years' course of study superimposed upon an equally 
definite four-year high-school course and leading to 
the junior year of the American baccalaureate course, 
it would be well for us to look upon the junior col- 
lege simply as the enriched upper high school, or 
school for adolescents, following upon the Secondary 
Transition Department, "Intermediate School,'' 
"Preparatory Department," or "Junior High School," 
as the school for pubescents is variously called, and 
giving one, in a course of study that could be covered 
in from three to five years, either the preparation 
necessary to enable one to profit by university studies 
or a basis of general culture and practical efficiency 
that would enable one to enter the industrial world 
fairly well equipped to play one's part as a good citi- 
zen, and a useful man or woman. 

The logical distinction between the schools of sec- 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 103 

ondary grade (with which we are now concerned) 
and the university, together with such professional 
schools as belong to it (wherein are studied medicine, 
advanced engineering, advanced agricultural science, 
advanced political science, advanced history and 
mathematics and physics and chemistry and biology 
and philology etc.), lies in the fact that the primary 
function of the secondary schools is simply to impart 
a knowledge of such of the facts and theories of inter- 
est to human life as are generally admitted to be true 
and useful, such of the arts and sciences, that is, as 
have reached the positive stage ; the function of these 
schools is to enable the student to attain such a famil- 
iarity with accepted truth as will enable him, not as 
a specialist, but as a member of the present genera- 
tion, to make use in the ordinary affairs of life of 
what has been achieved by an earlier human effort ; 
while the function of the university |(and of profes- 
sional and technological schools of university rank) 
is to give the specialist's mastery and to so use> the 
known as to advance into the realm of the undiscov- 
ered. To this end the university carefully preserves 
all that has been learned in the past, regardless of 
whether any practical application for the knowledge 
has yet been found, disseminates the most recent dis- 
coveries and hypotheses, trains promising young men 
in methods favorable to original research, and with 
their assistance projects itself into what had previ- 
ously been terra incognita. 



104 THE KEOEQANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

III. 

As TO THE Adaptation of the Plan^ of Organi- 
zation TO THE Various Classes of Young People. 

Although most of what is to follow has been implied 
if not explicitly stated, in what precedes, it would 
seem to be worth while, for the sake of clearness, to 
complete this exposition of the proposed system of 
grading, by setting forth with some particularity how 
it would apply in the case of different classes of young 
people. 

Section 1. As to Girls. 

As to girls I have but a few words to say at this 
time. The course I have outlined seems to me to be 
equally applicable to boys and girls, although it was 
planned with boys chiefly in mind. I think we may 
take for granted that the work of the Play School and 
the Primary Transition Department should be the 
same for boys and girls, and that the classes in these 
first two departments of the school should consist of 
boys and girls together. A certain amount of train- 
ing in the fundamental industrial arts would be a 
part of the curriculum in the first three departments 
for boys and girls alike, but it might also be well in 
the latter part of the curriculum of the Elementary 
Department to make the manual training work for 
boys and for girls somewhat different, initiating the 
girls more fully into the arts of homekeeping. Except 
so far as this difference in the work should make sepa- 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 105 

ration necessary, I think it would be well to keep the 
boys and girls in common classes throughout the El- 
ementary School period. I confess that I have not 
yet given sufficient consideration to female education 
as such to speak with much positiveness about the ed- 
ucation of girls after this period. It seems to me, 
however, that the curriculum hereinbefore set forth 
for the Secondary Transition Department and sug- 
gested for the Adolescent Department is equally ap- 
plicable for youths and maidens, except, of course, 
that different electives would normally be advisable 
and that a course in home economics should be pre- 
scribed for girls in the first year or two of the Ado- 
lescent Department, if not also in the Secondary 
Transition Department. In view of the fact that 
continuous individual progress from year to year 
throughout the whole period of years during which 
the subject is studied,* rather than certain definitely 
prescribed attainments as the conditions of promotion 
from one annual or semi-annual class to another, is 
the method I would have followed in the study of 
foreign language and mathematics in the Adolescent 
Department of the school, I do not feel that the dif- 
ferences in the rate of growth and in physical and 
intellectual vigor in adolescent males and females 
make separate classes in these subjects necessary. The 
instruction in these subjects, in history and "the 
humanities'' generally, and in physical, as distinct 

* Compare Search's "Ideal School" and Hornbrook's "Labora- 
tory Method of Teaching Mathemathics in Secondary Schools" 
for somewhat detailed expositions of the method to be employed. 



106 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

from biological sciences, miglit well be given in com- 
mon classes ; but the instruction in human physiology 
and preferably all that in biology, should be given in 
separate classes, as well as the (prescribed) work in 
physical training and perhaps some of the advanced 
reading courses in the several languages. It seems to 
me eminently desirable, for the sake of that larger 
education for life which is of so much more impor- 
tance than "book-learning," that youths and maidens 
should have a part of their education in common 
classes; but such common classes should be so con- 
ducted that the girls should be subject to no serious 
disadvantage and to no embarrassment by reason of 
such irregularity in attendance as is physiologically 
desirable for them. Further than this, whether in 
mixed classes or in classes wholly composed of girls, 
the latter should be subject to no penalty for not 
taking review examinations or subjecting themselves 
to formal tests at fixed dates'^ (provided, of course. 



* I would not have it understood that I regard examinations 
as useless or pernicious, as some extremists maintain, yet, as 
they are usually conducted, I regret to say that I believe they 
are more harmful than helpful to girls. The nervous strain 
is frequently very injurious, and the thought of a coming 
examination too frequently encourages an illiberal, literal method 
of study, to which in our present stage of culture, girls seem 
somewhat more inclined than young men. On the other hand, 
the mental training that the review examination gives, which 
is so valuable for the man of affairs, the lawyer, the publicist, 
is generally less necessary for girls than for boys, unless the 
girls are preparing for the teaching profession. Yet it is for 
this mental training that examinations are primarily valuable. 
They are to be regarded more as a means of education than 
as a test of knowledge. Properly planned and conducted they 
are of great value in encouraging one to review, reorganize and 
summarize — and thus make one's own — the facts and the 
underlying principles that have constituted the subject matter 
of one's study for a considerable period of time. And in addi- 
tion to this, it should not be forgotten that even "cramming" 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 107 

that their daily work shows that they are fairly atten- 
tive to their class duties*). So far as such exercises 
may be necessary, they should be arranged for at the 
convenience of the girls individually. If these mat- 
ters could not be arranged satisfactorily in common 
classes, the classes for youths and for girls should be 
separate. But in most cases I am of the opinion 
that they could be satisfactorily arranged. 

Section 2. The ]N'ormally Developing Child 
OF Average Ability. 

The normal child might well enter The Play 
School (or Primary Department) at four or five years 
of age, and spend not less than two years there under 
the same teacher with a class most of whom would 
have begun their school life at the same time he did. 
At the end of two or threef years, his teacher 
would start with another class of beginners, and 
at the same time he and those of his classmates who 
had not already been transferred would pass into The 
Primary Transition Department, where he would 
normally spend from one to two years under his sec- 

for an examination, aUhough the knowledge thus gathered to- 
gether and held in the mind for a few hours, or days (I. e. 
until the examination is passed) is then almost wholly for- 
gotten, is by no means a valueless exercise. This power of gath- 
ering together in a short time, and holding in mind for a brief 
period, a large body of facts, is of great value to the lawyer, 
the statesman, the public speaker of any kind; and not only to 
the lecturer, but hardly less so to the reviewer and the 
journalist. 

* In which case they might be given a B grade without an 
examination. 

t Whether two or three or three and a half years would be the 
normal term for the Play School must be determined by experi- 
ment. 



108 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

end teacher, continuing the occupations of the 
Play School, or a part of them, under the same gen- 
eral methods. 

As far as mental training and moral development 
are concerned, it might generally he possible for the 
child to take up the work of the Elementary Depart- 
ment, the school of boyhood and girlhood proper (cor- 
responding in a general way to what in our American 
public schools is often called the intermediate de- 
partment or grammar school, — the Play School and 
the Primary Transition Department together corre- 
sponding to the kindergarten and primary depart- 
ments of the present school system), after one year 
in the Primary Transition Department, or even 
immediately upon passing from the Play School. The 
object of keeping a child in the Primary Transition 
Department as long as two years (or longer) would 
simply be to make sure that he had completely 
passed through what is sometimes called the crisis of 
second dentition, the period of lessened vitality that 
often, if not always, marks that stage in the develop- 
ment of a child when his brain has approximately at- 
tained its full bulk and he is rapidly losing his first 
and gaining his second teeth. When this period of 
development has been safely passed through, and not 
until then, whether it be after one, two, two and a 
half, or three years in the Primary Transition De- 
partment, and when the child has entered upon that 
period, generally marked by sturdiness and steady 
growth, described above as characteristic of boyhood 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 109 

or girlhood proper, as distinguished from childhood 
on the one hand and adolescence on the other, then 
the boy or girl should be advanced into the Elemen- 
tary or Intermediate Department. 

The subject matter and the method of instruction 
and training in the Primary Transition Department 
and the Play School, would be so similar that they 
might be conducted as one continuous class were it 
not for the necessity of meeting the various needs of 
children maturing at different rates of development 
and entering school at different ages, and were it not 
that in the Primary Transition Department the health 
of the child should be the primary consideration even 
more than in the Play School. In consequence of 
these considerations the treatment of the children in 
the Primary Transition Department would be more 
largely individual that at any other stage of the 
child's life prior to adolescence ; and this department 
is especially designed to give to the curriculum as a 
whole the elasticity it should have, and with this end 
in view it affords the opportunity for considerable 
interruptions of the routine of school life in case 
such interruptions should seem desirable for any 
child. In the case of an especially delicate child the 
time covered by this stage of development could be 
spent in out-of-door life wholly outside the school, 
and the child of rich parents might be out of school 
at this time acquiring a foreign language by th^ nat- 
ural, conversational method. During the two or 
three years of the Play School the normal course of 



110 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

development and unfolding of the child's mind should 
be carefully ministered to according to the best 
knowledge attainable in the light of child study and 
comparative psychology and physiology, and here the 
teacher's procedure would exhibit its method in a 
fairly regular and uniform progression. In the Pri- 
mary Transition Department, however, while the ef- 
fort should be made to keep the child from losing what 
it might have gained in moral training in the Play 
School, and to keep its mind open to the beauty and 
interest of the myriad phases of life, and to encourage 
the gradual perception of the orderly development of 
all that is, yet a larger freedom of individual treat- 
ment of the children would be possible and desirable 
here, and a systematic line of development would be 
less necessary. 

The Elementary Department would be entered by 
the normal child whose course we have been follow- 
ing, in his ninth or tenth year, and here he would 
usually spend about four years under the same 
teacher, who would conduct him through the whole 
elementary school curriculum, with the assistance, in 
the larger cities, of special teachers for manual train- 
ing, physical culture, and foreign language, and for 
music, drawing, etc. 

The Secondary Transition Department would then 
be entered by our normal child in his thirteenth or 
fourteenth year, and its course would ordinarily be 
completed in a year. 

The Adolescent Department, Secondary Depart- 



THE REORGANIZATION^ OF OUR SCHOOLS 111 

ment, or High Scliool would be entered by the young 
person who bad spent but a year in tbe Secondary 
Transition Department, in bis fourteentb or fifteenth 
year; and here be migbt remain from one to five 
years or longer, according to bis plans for life, taking 
sucb a course as migbt suit bim. 

Every effort sbould be made by tbe public and 
scbool authorities, as well as by tbe parents, to give 
tbe youtb or maiden, at least tbe first year of tbe Ad- 
olescent Department, or Higb Scbool course, before 
allowing bim or ber to leave scbool. If tbe law sbould 
provide tbat admission to tbe Secondary Transition 
Department sbould be granted to every cbild wbo 
bad attained tbe age of thirteen at tbe beginning of 
the school year, in case the parent should demand it 
(regardless of tbe young person's definite attain- 
ments in scholarship at that time), and should pro- 
vide further that, after attending for a year the 
classes provided for in the Secondary Transition De- 
partment, tbe youth should be granted admission to 
the first year classes of the Adolescent Department, it 
would be perfectly feasible to make one year's work 
in the high school, or Adolescent Department, the 
minimum limit of compulsory education for all 
young persons not excused therefrom by reason of 
physical or mental inferiority as determined by a 
competent physician's certificate. (In any case the 
completion of the Secondary Transition year should 
be required.) Let me add that I do not shrink from 
any necessary corollary of what I have just proposed. 



112 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 

such as providing at public expense the necessary 
food or clothing or shelter for orphans or the children 
of parents too poor to keep their children at school 
until the completion of their fifteenth year. The 
poverty or illiberality of parents should not be al- 
lov^^ed to deprive the men and women of tomorrow of 
a sufficient introduction to the rudiments of art and 
science to make them capable workers and intelligent 
citizens of the world. I am sure that a careful statis- 
tical investigation of the subject will convince the 
most skeptical that the state that allowed no person 
of normal (physical or mental) health to enter upon 
his or her life work with less education than I have 
suggested as a minimum, would from the economic 
standpoint find itself amply compensated for the re- 
quisite outlay by reason of the increased wealth and 
tax-paying power of the community as a whole and 
of the individual citizens. 

I would add, however, with reference to the ques- 
tion of expense, that a little intelligent co-operation 
between the school authorities and employers of labor 
in a given community would make it possible to re- 
lieve the parents (as well as the public) of all ex- 
pense for the support of their children after they had 
completed the Secondary Transition year {at about 
fourteen years of age) and yet enable the latter to 
carry their secondary education as far as they might 
wish to carry it. This would simply require, on the 
one hand, both morning and afternoon sessions of 
classes of the same grade in the Adolescent Depart- 



THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 113 

inent of the schools, aud on the other hand that em- 
ployers of labor who could make use of the services 
of adolescents should, instead of employing one per- 
son for eight or ten hours a day, employ two persons 
for four or five hours a day each. The employers 
would probably get more work done for the same out- 
lay of time and money, by thus making use of two 
sets of workers, than they could get from one set of 
persons working all day long at the same job and 
more or less worn out during the latter part of the 
day. A ten-hour industrial day, would, in this way, 
work less hardship upon the individuals doing the 
labor than now results from an eight-hour day. It 
goes without saying, of course, that the pupil thus 
working his way through high school should not go 
so fast, take so many studies a day, as the youth who 
has nothing but his school and a few light home 
duties; but the former could probably complete the 
same course in a period one-third longer than would 
be taken by the rich man's son, although it is doubtful 
if the latter would have as valuable a preparation for 
life as the schoolmate who had meanwhile been learn- 
ing to take care of himself. 

SECTioisr 3. The Child of Slow Development. 

He might begin school a year or two later than the 
normal child. If he should begin before six he 
would still be able to spend two years in the Play 
School before entering the Primary Transition class, 
where he might remain until he were nine or even 



114 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

ten if his physical development were very slow. He 
would then normally spend four years in the Elemen- 
tary Department, at the expiration of which time he 
would have attained his fourteenth year at least. At 
this time, although he might have achieved much less 
in this department of the school than most of his 
classmates (notwithstanding that they would general- 
ly he a year or two younger than he), it would nor- 
mally be desirable for him to pass into the Secondary 
Transition class. If his health were good and he 
were now in the pubescent stage he might complete 
the work of this department of the school in a year, 
and might if necessary spend the five periods a week 
set apart for an elective study, in working up, with 
the assistance of a teacher who should give him indi- 
vidual instruction, those of the Elementary Depart- 
ment studies, such as English and arithmetic, in 
which he might be especially backward. The English 
work forming a regular part of the curriculum of the 
Secondary Transition Department would also be such 
as could be especially adapted to the mental imma- 
turity of one who should need that it should be so 
adapted. Upon completing the work of the Second- 
ary Transition Department the youth in question 
would take the prescribed work of the first year of the 
Adolescent Department or High School, and as much 
more as might be good for him ; and after that ho 
could go as far in his studies and at as rapid or as 
slow a pace as might suit him. 

If, however, after four years spent in the Elemen- 



THE REOKOANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 115 

tary Department he should still be more immature 
physically than his classmates, he might pass into the 
next Elementary class below his own, to remain an- 
other year or so in the Elementary Department; or 
he might give two years to the Secondary Transition 
Department, devoting, during the first year at least, 
the period a day set apart for elective work to any 
elementary work in which he were especially back- 
ward, if any such there were, and, while taking the 
physical training and art work both years, following 
only the science course and the English course the 
first year, leaving the course in history together with 
such elective work as might be desired and further 
work in English for the second year. He would then 
complete the prescribed work of the first year of the 
high school and take as much more work as might be 
good for him. 

Section 4. The Child of ExcEPTioiq-ALLY Rapid 
Growth ai^d Early Maturity of Mind or Body. 

Such a child, who might enter school at three or 
four years of age, would also spend at least two years 
in the Play School, and, even though he should have 
passed the crisis of second dentition before complet- 
ing his seventh year, he would still spend about a year 
in the Primary Transition Department ; then in ^his 
eighth year he might enter the Elementary Depart- 
ment. Four years later (no earlier, however preco- 
cious he might be, unless his physical development 
should be as rapid as his mental) he would enter the 
Secondary Transition Department ; and if at the com- 



116 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

IDletion of a year in the Secondary Transition De- 
partment, in Lis thirteenth year, he had arrived at 
pnberty, he might enter upon his high school course 
at once. Even though he were not as mature physi- 
cally as mentally, however, he might neveriheless take 
up some of the studies of the Adolescent Department, 
if physically robust ; but it might be preferable, es- 
pecially if he were delicate, for him to spend more 
than a year in the Secondary Transition Department, 
devoting himself primarily to physical culture and 
art and going on with the English work of the depart- 
ment, but also doing some special work both in contin- 
uance of his Elementary Department studies and in 
new lines. It might be best of all for a precocious 
but delicate child to spend a year or so out of school 
until he were physically mature enough to enter the 
Adolescent Department. 

Section 5. The Young Person Who Has Been 
Kept Out of School by Illness, Lack of Op- 
portunity, OR Other Special Cause. 

If a mentally normal child should not begin his 
school life until seven years of age, he might be put 
at once into the Primary Transition Department, to 
remain for two years or less according to his degree 
of maturity ; after which he might enter the Elemen- 
tary Department and proceed according to the regular 
course. 

If he were already unquestionably past the stage 
of "childhood proper,'' the stage for the Play School, 



THE KEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 117 

or Primary Department, — say nine or ten years of 
age, — when first sent to school, the boy (or girl) 
might still be put into the Primary Transition De- 
partment for a few months for special instruction, if 
it were not the beginning of the school year, and be 
there given the rudiments of reading and of number 
work (if he had not already absorbed them at home), 
or he might enter the Elementary Department at 
once if he should begin school at the beginning of 
the school year. Although his mind would probably 
be less well developed than the minds of his class- 
mates, who would generally have spent about four 
years in the Play School and Primary Transition 
Department together, yet the work of the Elementary 
Department would be so largely independent of what 
precedes and follows it that any normal child at the 
stage of growth corresponding to this department of 
the school would be able to pursue the curriculum of 
the department satisfactorily even though this were 
the beginning of school life for him, and would be 
able to leave this department for the Secondary Tran- 
sition Department when he should reach the stage of 
puberty, even though the lack of early opportunity 
would probably prevent the education of one who 
had thus begun school in the Elementary Department 
from being as thoroughly good as that of his more 
fortunate classmates. 

Let us now consider the case of a boy (or girl) 
who for some special reason, as ill health in childhood 
or a life spent in the backwoods, were eleven or more 

/ 



118 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

years old when first brought to school, at which time 
we may suppose him to be wholly ignorant of "the 
three E's.'' In this case, if it were not the time at 
which a class of the Elementary Department were 
beginning, the boy might spend the intervening 
months in the Primary Transition Department, but 
as soon as an Elementary Department class should 
begin I would put him into it. Further than this, if 
he should mature early, should enter upon adolescence 
at thirteen, say, and should be restless and dissatis- 
fied to be working with younger or less mature chil- 
dren, I would then put him into the Secondary Tran- 
sition Department, even though he had spent less 
than three years in all in school, and though he were 
manifestly inferior in his knowledge of arithmetic, 
English, etc. to the classmates who remained in the 
Elementary Department when he was taken out of it. 
Finally, if a youth should have had no opportunity 
for schooling before adolescence, and at fifteen (or, 
for that matter at twenty), should come to school un- 
able to read and write, I would not only not have him 
begin in the Primary Department, I would not have 
begin in the Elementary Department, but would put 
him at once into the Secondary Transition Depart- 
ment, having him devote to special coaching in read- 
ing, writing and arithmetic, the time spent by his 
classmates in elective work, and in the English read- 
ing course. In two years at most, I am confident, — 
judging not alone, by the light of psychology, but 
also by that of history and biography, — the normally 



THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 119 

endowed youth, thougli ignorant as a savage at the 
start, would be able to enter upon the curriculum of 
the adolescent, or Secondary Department with profit. 
Of course he would not be as thoroughly educated as 
his fellows, who had had the advantage of school in 
each of the lower stages of their development; 
he would be at an unquestionable disadvantage; his 
work would as a matter of course be harder for him 
and would seem more uncouth to his fellows; but 
nevertheless he would be able to enter upon and pur- 
sue a secondary education, — and should be set at that, 
not at primary or at elementary school work, — be- 
cause he would be in the stage of development for 
secondary education. 

Section 6. As to Industrial Workers and 
Evening Schools. 

To the young person whose parents are unable to 
support him while getting an education, the proposed 
school organization is exceptionally advantageous, 
lending itself readily to cooperation with such an or- 
ganization of industry as would permit the employ- 
ment of two persons at the same job, one working in 
the morning and the other in the afternoon ; by spend- 
ing only the forenoon or the afternoon^ as the case 
might be, in school, a youth might support himself 
while pursuing an education, and might carry that 
education on as many years as he should care to give 
to it. If, furthermore, he should come to a city having 
such an organization of schools at the age of sixteen, 



120 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 

or at a greater age, still ignorant of the rudiments of 
education, he could be put in a special class in the 
Secondary Transition Department, until he should 
gain a tolerable command of the three R's, and could 
then proceed with the regular and elective work of the 
Secondary Transition Department and of the school 
for adolescents at his own gait. 

As already suggested, so far as the size and re- 
sources of the community render it possible, all 
courses in the Secondary Transition Department and 
in the School for Adolescents should have morning, 
afternoon and evening classes. The evening school 
will long be a necessity for adolescents and will prob- 
ably always be desirable for adults; and the ideal 
evening school would include all the courses of the 
Secondary Transition Department and of the high 
school proper, in addition to courses for which there 
might be no demand during the day. But much of 
its work as a continuation school could be done in the 
day time if employers could be brought to employ 
two young persons for four (or ^ye) hours each, in- 
stead of one for eight (or ten) hours. There would 
probably be some inconveniences experienced from hav- 
ing two persons fill the same job, especially at first ; 
but these would doubtless be completely offset — so far 
as the employer is concerned, at least — by the greater 
efficiency of the labor of one whose freshness, vigor, 
and good spirits had not been worn out by eight or 
ten hours of the same kind of labor. 

THE END. 




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